Black Ice
by OneShotRevolt
Summary: Bi-Han has signed himself onto one of the hardest missions ever given to the Lin Kuei. He's going into deep cover to assassinate high up members of crime families in Hong Kong. He's young, fit, ambitious and ready. The only problem is he's never lived as a regular citizen before, and his idea of cover is to bring along ten-year-old Kuai Liang...
1. Where the Clan Cannot Touch Us

Kuai Liang looked around the room with darting eyes. Thin wooden walls were inset with plastic frames and steamed up glass windows. Moth-eaten lampshades hung from single stuttering bulbs and winked down at old sturdy furniture covered in patched worn quilts.

"There are so many… things!" He pulled open a draw in a bedside cabinet, then the door to the cupboard underneath. He tugged the switch on the lamp on top. He nudged a phone receiver and poked his finger in its coiled wire.

"Stop touching everything." His brother looked easy and comfortable as always. Kuai had to look very hard to see the details of uncertainty in his movements. His hand hovered a second before it picked up a suitcase and tossed it to the floor. A frown flickered in his brow as he unclipped its hinges and flung it open. His eyes squinted fractionally as he surveyed the little they had brought with them from the Temple; everything they possessed.

"So many things!" Kuai said again. He sat down on a low mattress on the floor. "A bed! Can we keep it, Bi-Han? Please? Please can we keep the bed?!" His bright blue eyes were wide and pleading.

"Yes! It's part of our cover, now shut up I need a second to think."

Kuai rolled like a rolling pin feeling the soft felt blanket under his cheek. He sat up when he remembered he was still angry at his brother. He folded his arms and folded his legs and screwed his up face and put out his lip. His brother was looking at his blue Lin Kuei uniform doubtfully, as if unsure what to do with it. He was so caught up in his own thoughts he did not have a spare glance for Kuai Liang. Kuai huffed, trying to get his attention. His own attention snapped away to a large fruit bowl on the kitchen table, visible through the doorway of the bedroom. He leapt up and ran into the kitchen. The bowl was too far for his small arms to reach, but he jumped onto the chair and dragged the bowl to him.

"Why is this table so big? Did they build it especially so that I can't reach it? Hey, Bi-Han, this is a melon, right?" He held up a green and yellow striped ball the size of his head.

"You're a melon."

"Bi-Han, is it a melon? Tell me!"

His brother did not turn round. Kuai sighed. He caught sight of a wooden rack of knives on the sideboard. He grabbed one and climbed back up to the table. He sat the melon down and cleaved it in two with one fine, clean, cut. The steel sheared the thick fruit skin but stopped a hairs breadth short of the table. The fruit split open and its two halves rocked left and right.

Bi-Han leapt for the wooden blinds and dragged them down the window.

"What did I tell you?!" He snapped.

Kuai looked pleased as he looked down at his handiwork,

"It _is_ a melon! I can see from the inside! I never saw a whole one before."

"Kuai Liang!"

Kuai looked slowly up at his brother. His gaze slunk away again.

"...Not to show my training..."

"Because?!"

"Because it might give away your cover on this dumb mission." He rolled his eyes.

" _Our_ cover. You are part of my cover, therefore if you are discovered to be an assassin in training, _I_ am as well."

"I chopped _one_ melon in half."

"Kuai Liang!"

Kuai hung his head, but he still scowled. Bi-Han picked up the knife and set it in the sink. He pulled up one of the kitchen chairs and sat opposite Kuai.

"Kuai Liang," He said again, but this time more gently, "I spent a long time persuading the Grandmaster to let me take you with me."

"Well I don't know why you bothered! I didn't want to come! And now I won't see Tomas for forever!"

"It's not forever, Kuai."

"It might not be to you, but it is to me! It might even be a year! I've only had ten of those in my entire life and I can't even remember some of them!"

"Exactly! There was no way I was going to leave you for a year!" Kuai quieted when he saw uncharacteristic emotion on his brother's face. "Now, I'm sorry you won't get to see your friend, but I'm giving you something important here. You can have a chance at a normal life. Learn things normal children learn, see the world outside of the Lin Kuei, if only for a short while."

"The Lin Kuei is my home," Kuai said a little sulkily. He _was_ excited to see the world, but he was still angry. Tomas was the only friend he had beside his brother, and no one was really friends with their big brother when he was eight years older and could pick you up when you annoyed him.

"The Lin Kuei will poison you. You are the only member who does not remember ever living outside the clan. Apart from Sektor. You want to be like Sektor?"

Kuai shrunk into his chair and shook his head. Sektor was aloof and cold and elder gods forgive you if you accidentally ran into him when you were alone in a corridor. He put people in their place before they could think about moving out of them.

"Then keep your eyes open while you're here. Learn what you can in the brief time you can spend in the real world." Bi-Han stood.

"Why do you say 'poison', Bi-Han? You do everything for the clan. Why do you sound like you don't like them?"

His brother looked back at him,

"I do everything for _you_ , Kuai Liang, not the clan."

Kuai did not know what to say to that. He looked at the melon before him. He reached in a hand and scooped out the seeds of one half and threw them on the table. He offered the melon up to Bi-Han with small sticky hands. His brother's grave face dissipated into one of familiar scorn.

"I have no idea where your hands have been and neither do you. I'm not touching that." Kuai grinned. He had done what was important. The anxiety and shadow of pain on his brother's face had gone. He looked back to normal. Kuai turned his attention to the melon. Lacking an accessible knife, he put his whole face into it and bit. Juice ran down his chin and across his cheeks and he even had to shut his eyes. He sat up beaming and sticky with juice.

Bi-Han looked aghast. He had been about to say ' _You spend too much time with that Tomas Vrbada'_ , but decided against it when he thought of the look of betrayal and confusion both Tomas and Kuai had given him with when the Grandmaster announced Kuai Liang would accompany him on a year long mission. He looked back at Kuai munching on his new found delight. Bi-Han sighed and turned to his suitcase of Lin Kuei robes. He could not wear them whilst posing as a citizen. He would have to conceal them whilst he lived in this place. He had told the Grandmaster that living with his younger brother would add to his cover story. A young man new to an area and living alone would raise suspicion. It was still a big favour though, and the Grandmaster knew it. Bi-Han was going to have to walk a line of total obedience if he did not want that privilege revoked. A year without being there for Kuai Liang. A year where the Grandmaster or Sektor or whoever, could prey on the malleable trusting heart of a child that had still somehow retained an innocence that eight years of growing up amongst the Lin Kuei had not yet taken from him. He looked back at the sticky youth stuffing melon into his mouth.

Bi-Han sighed again and sat down heavily again at the table. He pulled the other half of the melon towards him.

"Pull the blinds before you start throwing knives around next time, alright?"

Kuai nodded, his eyes bright with warmth.

* * *

 **Author Note:** To keep myself sane through the winter months I've started writing this new thing. I'll share some more chapters soon, just gotta make sure I'm happy with them. I love Hong Kong crime dramas. I love these bros. Sticking them together is an entirely self-serving enterprise, which I hope someone else might enjoy too. But either way - I'm having fun.


	2. Rules of the Game

The light came in early and still through the slats of the wooden blinds. It fell in plain rectangles on the basin of the sink and onto the floorboards and up the wall with its cream clean wallpaper. For a moment Bi-Han could not believe he had this. Memories from another life crowded into his thoughts. A green plant on the window sill. Wooden spoons in a ceramic pottery jar. A clean chopping board. Washed glasses on the sideboard.

He looked at Kuai. The boy was sitting opposite him at the kitchen table, watching him curiously. Bi-Han smoothed his expressions quickly.

"Ground rules."

"Loyalty to the Grandmaster, loyalty to my clan, keep the clan secret, always kill a target, minimise collateral-"

"Not those. Mine."

Kuai looked at him,

"Yours?"

Bi-Han counted on his fingers as he spoke,

"Do not reveal your identity or mine. Do not use your martial or cryomancy abilities outside of this house," Kuai's face screwed up in objection but Bi-Han ploughed on, "Speak only English,"

"Bi-Han?! I can't even speak it that well – I'm not going to be able to talk to anyone!"

"Hardly anyone speaks Mandarin here anyway, Kuai Liang. Now pay attention. You will attend school every day except weekends."

"What's school?"

"It's like class back home, but you learn only theoretical knowledge, it starts later in the morning, and you come home at the end of the day."

Kuai's frustration melted away and he eyes became bright,

"What… what kind of things do you learn in a school?"

Bi-Han tried to recollect,

"Uh… counting. And where places are. And how things grow. And… stories?"

"Stories! Like history?"

"History, but also made-up stories too."

Kuai clasped his hands together, trying to contain his excitement, but Bi-Han could hear his feet tapping the floor in enthusiasm.

"Are there other people my age there?"

Bi-Han nodded.

"When can I go? Can I go now?"

Bi-Han frowned and Kuai, like a mirror, sobered up as best he could.

"I will need to find a suitable school to enrol you in. I want you to learn in English while you are here. It is a useful language to understand. Many of your victims will use it to converse when you go on missions of your own. Information makes a kill quick and easy. We will need to purchase supplies, and you will need to work on your cover story. We will also need to keep up your training. You will get up at 5 AM each day and I will teach you cryomancy. In the evenings you will train empty hand and weapons training. Understand?"

Kuai nodded.

"Will you come to school too, Bi-Han?"

"No. I will seek out suitable employment. I will have to gradually ingratiate myself into the ranks of my target's associates. That is all you will know of my mission and we will not speak of it again."

Kuai nodded again but his mind was still on his previous question.

"Does that mean… I'll have to go to school on my own?" He had never been anywhere on his own before. He had known everyone in the Temple his entire life, and whenever he did anything new, Bi-Han was always a few paces away from him.

"Yes." Bi-Han was already moving on as if he did not understand how enormous an obstacle this was in Kuai's chest. "Now, did you hear me about martial arts and ice?"

Kuai thought of an entire Lin Kuei Temple's worth of strangers all watching him try to spar with books about counting. A tall angry student who looked suspiciously like Sektor swam into his thoughts. In his mind's eye, not-Sektor was throwing plants and books at him and shouting in a language that Kuai did not understand. He suddenly wasn't as keen on school.

"Kuai Liang!"

Kuai Liang looked up innocently, trying to pretend he had been listening. Bi-Han's expression darkened. Kuai looked down.

"Sorry..." He murmured.

"I said no fighting and no ice."

Kuai looked back up and exclaimed,

"But that's all I can do!"

"Then you will do nothing until you learn something."

"Bi-Han! How will I make friends if I don't know anything!"

"You're not here to make friends. You're here to keep my cover in tact and to learn something useful in the process. Now stop answering me back, you're getting on my nerves."

Kuai sighed and scuffed his feet on the floorboards. He followed with his eyes as Bi-Han got up and opened the refrigerator. He took out three onions and set them on the chopping board. He eyed them suspiciously.

"What kind of civilian work will you do?"

"No questions, remember."

"But, won't I need to tell anyone who asks?"

Bi-Han opened a draw and selected a long knife. He held it up to eye level and ran finger along the length of the blade. He tested the weight in his hands and flicked his wrist to hear it snap through the air. He held it above the onions. A flash of steel shattered the morning light. Kuai blinked and the onions were all in tiny pieces. Bi-Han slammed the knife point down into the wood and scraped all the onion into a pan. Kuai got up and peered into the pan.

"Are the onions meant to have skin on?"

Bi-Han shrugged. He prodded buttons on a gas stove until a ring ignited in a burst of blue flame.

"Nice!" Kuai set his nose near the flames so he could watch the flickering blue light. Bi-Han put a thumb and forefinger into pressure points in Kuai's shoulder and steered him to one side. Kuai winced and grumbled, hissing and rubbing his shoulder as he stood carefully out of the way. The onions were set on the stove and began to sputter and hiss. Kuai watched them avidly from a distance as Bi-Han began to decimate a family of mushrooms with a carving knife. Black sooty whisps snaked up from the wok. "Bi-Han they're sticking! The onions are burning!"

His brother glanced around quickly for something to rectify the situation. He grabbed a bottle of oil and tossed half onto the pan. A three foot orange flame burst from the pan, tongue licking up and smearing black on the cream walls. Bi-Han instinctively shot a blast of ice at the oven. Crystals burst from his hands in a spray of fine white glittering mist. A thick blanket of ice encased the entire appliance. Kuai looked at it. It was a beautiful crystaline shimmer of colours in the morning light.

"Burnt _and_ frozen onions! You are a very special cook, Bi-Han!"

Kuai had a breakfast of raw mushrooms that morning.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Just a short chapter, in which Bi-Han fails at basic culinary tasks.


	3. Reading the Road

Bi-Han was trying to tie a tie in the mirror. He could tie a knot that three days of writhing and rope burns could not undo, but he could not tie one for aesthetic purposes.

"Bi-Han it's here!" Kuai Liang was kneeling on a couch spread with old crochet patterns. He had pushed aside a small gauze curtain and was peering through the misted glass to the road. "Oh, nope. It's too big! I'm not getting on! I won't!"

Bi-Han threw his head back as he shouted irritably through the house,

"You caught a coach across the length of China you can get on a school bus!" Damn the tie. He threw it to one side.

"You were there for that! And there are so many children! And there's shouting and someone just squooshed someone else's face up against the window. Ergh."

"Time to add one more to the fray." He came through into the kitchen. Kuai Liang had a cloth satchel over one shoulder and a nervous look in his eyes as he peered through the window. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "The Lin Kuei have no fear, remember?"

Kuai's eyebrows knitted together.

"What if they laugh at me?"

"Just punch them."

"Bi-Han! You said no martial arts!"

"That's not martial arts," Bi-Han pulled the curtain aside to get a better look at the school bus. It did look rowdy, "That's just survival."

"Aren't you meant to tell me to be reasonable, or tell an adult, or ask them not to pick on me?"

"You can do all of that with a single well-aimed punch, now get a move on."

Kuai moved away from the window and took a cautious step towards his brother. He looked up hopefully. Bi-Han gave him a look of utter bemusement, eyebrows raising to point out the waiting school bus.

"I thought maybe since we're being undercover and you're looking after me, that I could… say goodbye?"

"Bus. Now."

Kuai darted out the door and clambered up the steps. There was a hiss of closing doors and the rumble of an engine.

Bi-Han froze as he watched the bus pull away. He swallowed. Kuai had never been anywhere but back at the Temple when they were apart. He closed his eyes tightly. He took long deep meditative breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. When he opened his eyes the bus was gone. He went back to the bedroom and snatched up the tie.

It was mid-afternoon and raining as he made his way to the interview. He was in a crisp suit and tie that was gradually becoming soaked. He swore as he stepped around black puddles, cracked and reflecting neon lights from far above. Tall leering buildings were almost dark under thick bellied clouds. Their signs winked on and flashed in the dim afternoon, sending roads, cars, and pavements a sliding wet riot of colour. Smells and sights steamed out of half covered hatchways and street stalls. He blocked everything out, becoming a wall of absence, and turning all about him into strings of facts. He focussed on getting to his destination on time. All else faded into the background.

"Mr Zho?"

He looked up. He was dripping on the floor of the waiting room. The waiting room had a single cactus sitting in a terracotta pot. He had dripped on that too. There were motivational posters on the wall behind the aide who had come to collect him. _A consistent positive mental attitude is a force that enables the beholder to overcome even the deepest of hindrances_ was written in white typeface under an enormous waterfall. Ironic, though Bi-Han, he'd like to see someone try to take on a waterfall with only a positive mental attitude. Or a blade in their back for that matter.

"This way please, Mr Zho."

He was ushered to a room that was too cramped for the desk within it, or for the two men in suits who looked like they were doing their best to pretend that wasn't the case. They looked at one another as Bi-Han entered and one raised his eyebrows. A small window on the far wall looked onto a narrow back alley filled with rubbish bins. It was still raining hard and constant. The lights were electric blue and gave the ceiling an unearthly, half-present feel. A filing cabinet stood in one corner. Most of it's locks looked like they had been forced. A blue strong box sat on top of the cabinet along with a wonky pot plant in dire need of nourishment. Bi-Han could think of at least four ways to kill a man in the present environmental conditions.

"Mr Zho, what do _you_ think you can bring our establishment."

Bi-Han looked at them, a little perplexed. He had answered an advert for work, why else did they think he was here? He had been answering adverts for work for over a week. He answered so many a day he wasn't even entirely sure which one he was presently interviewing for.

"I can bring myself. I can work."

"Mm. Self confidence. I like that." The second man began writing, the one who had raised his eyebrows as Bi-Han entered. The first man rolled his eyes.

"And what particular talents, can you, as a person, offer us, Mr Zho?"

"Talents? What talents do you want. I can learn them."

"Self confidence and pragmatism," Said the second man, as if he were reviewing the interview from the future.

The first man, ground his teeth in frustration. His suit was deep blue, and not black as Bi-Han had first assumed. He could see now the creases in its sleeves, and in its front pocket a bent wire ring-bound note pad. His fingers had small blotches of ink stains.

"Do you know anything about our establishment, Mr Zho?"

Bi-Han did. He might not remember which business this was, but he knew the building. He had done research on every location he had placed an advert. And not just to please suited interviewers. He knew the date this building was built, the lines of latitude and longitude it occupied on the globe, rough blueprints of every floor, and how often it was haunted by regulars from the local syndicate.

"What… exactly do you want me to tell you about it?"

"Well… do you know anything about the restaurant? What kind of food its serves?"

So this was a restaurant. He'd only applied to one of those. Bi-Han narrowed his eyes,

"I applied to serve drinks." Or at least, he thought that was what the advert had said.

"Yes," said the blue suited man patiently, "Have you served drinks before?"

"I'm a fast learner."

Blue-suit man gave a sigh. He had been clicking the top of his ball-point pen in and out. He set it down now before him and looked at the second man. The second man was wearing a pure black suit with perfectly crimped napkin in the breast pocket. His hair was combed in such a fashion as to look precisely and deliberately cool and at ease.

"Do you know what kind of clientelle we serve here, Mr Zho?" The second man posed a question for the first time.

That, Bi-Han did know,

"The kind that do not wished to be disappointed or disrespected."

The second man gave a slight, crisp, half-smile. Bi-Han instinctively knew that was a good kind of smile for the present moment.

"Let's say my colleague and I come up to the bar to order a drink before our meal. How would you greet us?"

Bi-Han turned his eyes to the second man,

"I would ask you how I could help you."

"Me? Not my colleague?"

Bi-Han smiled an empty, charming smile. He knew nothing about drinks, but he did know people.

"Your colleague will not be offended if I ask him second. You will."

The second man nodded. He picked up his pen from the desk and set it down again to make a point to the blue-suit man. They looked at each other and thanked Bi-Han. Bi-Han bowed and left.

Before he could walk back out into the rain he had been handed a letter of employment and the hours for his first shift. He nodded as he accepted the letter from a clerk. Reading people fell into his area of expertise. Recognising habits and indicators of behaviour helped to establish patterns and make a target's movement predictable. He unfolded the letter. His name had been scrawled in black ink at the top.

Thankfully they hadn't asked if he knew anything about alcoholic beverages. Given that he hadn't even tried one before, it might have been a little harder to persuade anyone that he'd be an asset to a two-man team of cocktail makers.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Pretty sure they just hired him because he's ripped and a good look for the front of house.


	4. Winter in the Sub-tropics

Kuai Liang sat nursing his small satchel to his chest and trying to collect all his limbs to him so that he took up as little space as possible. Everyone else on the bus was wearing a light blue shirt with a little crest on it. He didn't have a light blue shirt with a little crest on it. He had been cursing Bi-Han for ten minutes straight in his head for not getting him one. Someone had said something to him when he first got on, but it wasn't in English and neither was it in any Chinese that he recognised. He screwed up his eyes and looked out the window. He breathed ice cold breath onto the window that fractalled into crystalline shapes. He moved his finger in the frosted mist to draw a picture. He drew a smiling face with floating wavy hair like smoke.

"How did you make it cold like that?"

He turned around. He knew the English words but they were said too fast for him to understand the meaning.

A girl with pigtails tied up with red ribbons pointed at his picture.

"How did you make it cold?"

This time he did understand, but he feigned ignorance to dodge the topic. He pointed beyond the fading picture to the rain that was beginning to fall in thick consonant sheets. It ran down gutters and pavements and sloshed down curbsides.

"Does it always rain so big here?"

The girl laughed at his words, but he was glad to hear it wasn't an unpleasant laugh. She sat down next to him,

"Sometimes! Sometimes it rains so much that the water comes out of the ocean and eats part of the land!"

Kuai narrowed his eyes.

"I've never seen the ocean before."

The girl laughed again,

"How can you not! Its everywhere! I can see it from my house! I live on the sixteenth floor." She said proudly. "You must be new. New and from the mainland! They're the only people who haven't seen the ocean!"

Kuai's face became worried. He hoped Bi-Han wouldn't be angry with him. He had only said two lines and this girl already knew where he was from.

"Don't worry," She said, misreading his concern, "At school there are lots of people from all over the world! It's an international school. There are people from China like you who don't know anything about anything." Kuai scowled, but she just laughed again, "And people from India, and the desert countries in the Middle East, and from Britain and America, and of course from the Philippines and Indonesia and-"

"Czechoslovakia?"

She frowned at him,

"I've never heard of any place like that. Are you sure it isn't some kind of cow from a farm at home?" She laughed and laughed, but Kuai didn't find that funny. He was thinking of his friend, Tomas, back home who he thought was much funnier.

"I'm Jia." She put out her hand. Kuai looked at it, confused. She laughed again this time as if remembering something, she put her palm to her fist and bowed her head slightly, "This better for you, Nongfu?"

Her accent was very strange but he knew enough of the sounds to work that one out.

"Did you call me farmer?! I'm not a farmer! A farmer can't speak English!"

"Neither can you!" She ran down the length of the bus as it stopped, still laughing. Kuai tried to run after her but the aisle was suddenly full of bustling students and he found himself with a face full of satchels and shoulders. He stopped suddenly in the rain as soon as he got off the bus. Someone ran into his back and shouted at him then ran away holding a bookbag over their head to fend off the rain.

The school was built up into the steep hillside with red sloping roofs like steps and a sports field nestled in its midst, like a terraced mountain rice field. He could see the dense tropical forest thick on the hill behind where it was too steep to build. He looked shyly up at the stacks of buildings. If he squinted, he could almost imagine the sheer grey austere walls of the Lin Kuei Temple up there, caught in the wayward winds of monsoon rains. He only looked down when his socks were wet. His trousers were wet and his strange shirt with buttons all the way up the middle was wet and his hair was wet. His shoes squelched uncomfortably as he ran to keep up with the other students.

He stood infront of the class holding his sodden satchel to him and peering through a damp fringe. The school teacher introducing him didn't look like a teacher. For one, she was a woman. Kuai had never met a female teacher before. She didn't wear formal robes and she didn't have a stick. Kuai was squinting at her desk trying so see if he could spot one. If there was no stick, there might not be any punishment when he got things wrong.

"This is Tao Zho, he is new to our class, so we're going to make him feel very welcome. Here at the international school, we speak English, so we say the family name last, okay, Tao?"

Kuai Liang nodded. He had never had a family name before. He liked that he got to share one now with his brother. Bi-Han had let him chosen his own new personal name. There weren't any story books at the Temple, but there were some books that talked about a _tao_ , and Kuai always liked those books, even if he didn't understand all that they meant.

He shuffled up to an empty desk and sat in it. He thought it was strange to fill a classroom full of tables, but then occasionally they used obstacles in the Lin Kuei classrooms. He remembered what Bi-Han said about learning only words and not fighting. He folded his arms and wriggled in his seat, uncomfortable in his wet clothes. The rain poured down the windows in diagonal lines. Bi-Han would get wet on the way to his interview.

The teacher was a smiling Chinese lady in a pale blouse and a smart navy skirt. She smiled as she said everything. Kuai's teachers back home rarely smiled. Suddenly everyone was reaching into their satchels. Kuai looked about in panic. He had heard all the words but forgotten to concentrate on what they meant. He reached into his satchel like everyone else, even though he knew there was nothing in it. Suddenly the smiling teacher was next to him.

"Here you go, Tao." She sat a textbook with a bent plastic cover on his desk, "Did you study much biology at your old school?"

Kuai did not know what 'biology' meant. He looked up at her with wide eyes.

"We're studying the human body," She said, and cycled through similar simple words whilst using her hands to indicate. Kuai calmed as he understood.

"Yes, I know about the human body." He said quietly.

The teacher smiled and walked back to the front. She wheeled out a strange manakin torso made of plastic. Kuai stared at it. Its skin was cut away on one side to show different coloured organs inside. The teacher took out all the plastic organs and laid them out on the table. Kuai grew a little pale. He sat up in his seat. The other children chattered to each other while the teacher's back was turned.

"Who can tell me what this is?" She held up a brain. There was giggling but no answer. "Come one, who knows?" Kuai looked around to see what everyone else was doing. Nobody spoke. The girl who had sat next to Kuai on the bus piped up suddenly,

"It's what Nianzu doesn't have!"

The class burst into laughter. A tall boy with hair all neatly spiked stood up and his chair fell back, he burst into a stream of angry words that Kuai did not understand.

"Quiet!" The teacher stood tall in front of the furious boy, "Only English in the classroom, Nianzu! Pick up your chair and sit down. The teacher turned to the girl, "Jia Li-heng, that was unkind and uncalled for! Now _you_ can tell me what this is!" The teacher held up the plastic brain.

Jia folded her arms and rolled her eyes. The boy, Nianzu scraped his chair legs loudly and he set his chair upright. Jia grinned at him,

"Its a _brain_ , Ms Feng."

"Correct, and this?" She held up another plastic lump.

"A _stomach._ Do I have to do _all_ the organs, Ms Feng. _I've_ got a brain" She grinned back at the class.

"Let's see that brain in practice then, Jia." The teacher held up more and more plastic until finally there was a lump Jia couldn't name.

"What even is that, it looks like a dog left something in a-"

"Thank you, Jia. If you don't know the answer, maybe it's time to let someone else have a go. Well, anyone. What is this?"

" _Intestine._ "

The class turned around, looking for the perpetrator. Kuai looked around with them to try and hide what had clearly been a mistake in speaking up. When he looked back round he saw the teacher looking at him.

"That's right, Tao. But we don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese in the classroom. We say 'intestine' in English. Can you say 'intestine'?"

"It's not big enough though," Kuai decided that if the game was up, he might as well point it out. "Intestines go on forever and ever and only squidge down small when they're squashed into someone. If you held it like that it would be like a huge snake going from there," He pointed to the plastic in her hands, "To _there,_ " he leaned back on his chair and pointed to the back wall, "And back again so many times!"

There was quiet in the classroom. Jia broke it,

" _Ew_!"

" _Neat!_ " Said Nianzu, from the front of the class.

The teacher gave Kuai a smile that was full of puzzles and uncertainty. Kuai swallowed.

Nianzu caught up with Kuai after class in the corridor,

"Hey, how do you know that cool stuff about people's insides?"

"Uh." Kuai hesitated. Nianzu had a grey hooded sweater that hung at a jaunty angle over his blue shirt uniform, "I… learned about it in my old school."

"Do they really go on that long? Intest-whatsits?"

Kuai glanced behind him. When he couldn't see Ms Feng, he nodded vigorously.

"Are they goey? I bet they're goey." Nianzu looked at him eagerly.

"And slimy. Like giant worms. Disgusting."

"Nice!"

They walked down the corridor together, wet shoes squeaking on the tiled floors. Kuai felt they had sufficiently bonded to merit a question in return.

"What's that language you spoke when Jia made you angry?"

Nianzu scowled in recollection.

"Cantonese. That Jia makes me mad. She's got five sisters and they all live in one flat in a block in the Shek Pai Wan Estate. She probably makes all them mad too."

"Cantonese?" Kuai's heart fell, "Does everyone here speak Cantonese?"

"Pretty much," Nianzu looked distracted. He turned back round when Kuai was quiet, "But most people also know Mandarin."

"They do?" Kuai's heart lifted.

"Where do you live, Tao? Most people here don't live on an estate block like Jia. This isn't the kind of school people like Jia normally go to."

"Okay." Said Kuai. "I just moved here… so I don't really know where I live. I just got on the bus to come here."

"But you know if you live in a block. What floor are you on?"

Kuai looked uncomfortable,

"The… first."

"And how many above you."

"Maybe four?"

"Four? Are you sure?"

Kuai nodded apprehensively. Nianzu considered this for a long moment. A loud buzzer in the wall rang three short blasts.

"Four is okay, I guess. See you round, Tao."

Kuai was left standing in the corridor, a little perplexed. He looked around him and suddenly realised he was alone. The grey corridor was lined with red doors all with strange arabic numerals on them. He trudged his way down until his corridor became an open balcony running under a sheltered roof. There was no one here either. He looked down at the football field below, and the school reception below that, and the road below that, all set out like steps for a giant. Cars moved as blurs of wet light on dark tarmac. He thought he could see a stormy turquoise ribbon of sea out there. The wind blew a riot of rain washing into his back. He smeared his fringe out of his hair and turned around. Behind him the school continued to step up into a tall hall, but beyond that was the dense beckoning quiet the thick forest. He glanced around. Everywhere was still deserted. He set down his wet satchel, now harbouring a single biology textbook. He put his hands on the balcony rail and leapt up. The smell of wet eucalyptus hit his nose and he felt slippery grains of wood under his finger tips. He stood precariously, then grabbed the roof tiles of the shelter. He pulled himself up onto them and wriggled his way until he was astride the apex of its small roof. He crouched, then stood slowly, holding out his arms for balance. He walked carefully at first, stepping along the roof. Then he grew more confident. He moved more easily and looked up at the grey sky, feeling the warm rain spatter on his face. He opened his palms upward and freed his mind. The raindrops that hit his palms bounced off as hail. He smiled as he saw the cold thick mists curling about his fingers. He walked along the roof, turning the rain in his palms to ice, his eyes set on the hills and the wild and trees beyond.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Chameleon fail for smol cryomancer who takes after his bro.


	5. Knowing Our Place

Bi-Han was sullen and angry when he was soaked for the second time that day. He walked down a street boxed in by grey towers, a grey sky, and the grey remains of a road now more resembling a river. He turned off the street and climbed a steep set of stairs to a concrete balcony holding the school office. His tapping shoes sent thin puddles splashing. He pushed open the heavy door with one hand and enough force to set the glass rattling. He stood for a moment, blinking rainwater out of his face.

"Mr Zho?" He'd had enough of being called Mr Zho today.

"What." He snapped. A tall man with close cropped blonde hair and a brown suit stood next a small and sheepish Kuai Liang.

"I'm sorry to drag you out here in such bad weather, Mr Zho, but-"

"Yes, why _did_ you do that?" Bi-Han's eyes were dark and piercing.

Kuai smothered a grin. He always found it funny when someone else had to deal with his brother's bad mood.

"I'm coming to that, Mr Zho. Tao skipped out on his classes all afternoon."

Bi-Han's eyes snapped to Kuai. Kuai shrunk beneath them.

"It's not my fault! Everyone vanished! I didn't know where to go!"

"Which is why we have a school office, Tao. I should also add, Mr Zho, that Tao was found a mile up the hillside wandering in the woods by the school cross-country team in last period."

"By the what?" Bi-Han stared at the teacher.

"He was out of school grounds, Mr Zho."

"Oh. Does that matter?"

"Mr Zho!" The teacher looked exasperated, "Might I have a private word?"

Kuai tried not to grin. He sauntered over to the big window as the teacher took Bi-Han to one side.

"I am Mr Martin, the head of year seven, your brother's year. I can understand being lost on the first day, and I can understand not knowing the school rules or boundaries, but I must ask you to please show a little respect for school procedure in front of Tao, so that he does not end up in bigger trouble in future. If this happens again, I will have to put Tao in detention."

Bi-Han folded his arms,

"My brother is good at following rules and attending classes. Perhaps the reason he didn't is because he failed to receive adequate instruction. Was he given a timetable or rundown of the rules?"

The teacher looked apprehensive,

"If Tao had any problems, he should come to the school office, not go hiking in the woods."

Bi-Han squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes,

"Now that he knows where the school office _is_ , I'm sure that will be a simpler request to follow."

Mr Martin gave a terse, slightly tired smile,

"I must ask, Mr Zho. Is there an adult or legal guardian of Tao that I can speak to about this?"

Bi-Han stepped definitely up into Mr Martin's face, eyes flashing. He was a little smaller than the teacher, but had a strong muscular build that he now exacerbated by planting his hands firmly on his hips and pushing his chest out.

"I _am_ his legal guardian."

The teacher took a step back,

"A legal guardian should be over the age of-"

"Nineteen is over the age of eighteen. And I find you exceptionally rude. I don't know what place you come from, Head-of-Year-Seven, but where _I_ come from manners are very important. Take the time to teach my brother your rules or expect them to be broken. Do not come whining to me when you can't do your job. I have my own to get on with and I don't have to time to walk two and a half miles in a thunderstorm to deal with basic incompetence." He turned and indicated Kuai to follow with a sharp finger.

Kuai picked up his school satchel and gave an apologetic smile to the stunned teacher. He followed slightly behind Bi-Han who took the steps down to the road two at a time.

"You really shocked that teacher, Bi-Han! I never saw anyone look so surprised in their-" Bi-Han gave him a silencing glare.

Kuai hung his head. They walked in silence down the busy road. Cars wheeled past them, each one driving puddles onto their shins and leaving them splattered in rain and grime.

" _Hiking in a forest_?!" Bi-Han turned on him at last.

"I've never seen so many trees all together before! I just wanted a look!"

"Skipping class?!"

"I had no idea where to go!"

"Oh and I suppose if you got lost in the Temple and you ran out to play on the glacier, you'd make the same excuse to the Grandmaster?"

Kuai paled. He shook his head vigorously.

"Well? Would you?!"

"No, Bi-Han..." His voice was small. His hands shook as he thought of the Grandmaster and his lip trembled.

Bi-Han looked a his little brother, hunched and contrite and afraid. He calmed down a little,

"You think it's going to be good for my cover when I beat up a school teacher for treating my brother wrong?" Kuai looked up, his eyes uncertain but hopeful. Bi-Han frowned, "It's your responsibility to make sure I don't go round killing civilians who give you trouble."

Kuai laughed. Bi-Han looked at him, surprised, then smiled. Kuai hurried up to him and walked beside him. He looked up, his small face bright and adoring once more,

"Did you get the job you wanted?"

Bi-Han nodded. Kuai smiled,

"I knew you would." He frowned for a moment and skipped to keep up with his brother's stride, "Bi-Han, will you take me to see the ocean?"

"Haven't had enough water for one day?"

Kuai shook his head.

They detoured along the waterfront, finding their way between warehouses and fences and superficial treelines to the quiet dockside promenade. Grey snapping wavelets slapped at breakwater rocks, their white crests rearing and rolling under dark bellied clouds. Kuai stopped and looked at the heaving water. It became a grey haze before he could see any horizon. He shivered.

"It's… so much bigger than I imagined. Is it too big for you to freeze?"

Bi-Han laughed,

"Yes, Kuai."

"How far does it go on for?"

"Well, there's a little island not too far from here."

"Not counting islands."

"Well, looking in this direction you'd go on maybe five hundred miles before you got to Vietnam. But looking _that_ way," He pointed, "The peninsular with your school on it blocks it, but _that_ way..." His grey eyes became like the sea, and Kuai imagined that Bi-Han could see as far as the waves could and that all the open expanse was just there, out of reach, but somehow here in this moment, being shared with him in this instant. "Out there you can go on for weeks and weeks. You can go half the circumference of the world and meet nothing by water."

Kuai thought of the sea going on forever with its rolling, heaving, sulking waves. He thought of how big they must get without any land to hold them back. Bi-Han set a hand on his shoulder, sensing his disturbance.

"There's no need to be afraid. The sea is always a cryomancer's friend, Kuai Liang. Remember that if you're ever in trouble. Where others drown, a cryomancer walks freely. We may move upon its surface as easily as the snowy hillsides of home. It is kin to ice and knows us. So long as you have ice, you have nothing to fear from the ocean. An island is speck surrounded by our allies, the storm, the sea, the rain, the perfect place for a cryomancer assassin."

Kuai looked at Bi-Han, his eyes bright and shining.

Bi-Han raised an eyebrow at him.

"You were here to look at the ocean."

Kuai shuffled as close as his dared and tilted his head so that it almost touched his brother's arm,

"I like it when you tell me secret things and you sound serious but not angry. It makes me feel not just like some child everyone can push around."

Bi-Han frowned,

"You're not just some child. You're the brother of Sub-Zero. And some day you will have a codename of your own. The world will know you and fear you."

Kuai nodded, but then laughed at his brother's fierce eyes,

"If I'm known, I bet it will be as your brother! People will say- 'The ice assassin struck again! But it wasn't the scary one, it was the short one!'"

"Short for now maybe." Bi-Han began walking back towards their apartment, "Wait til your fourteen. You'll shoot up."

"Fourteen is _so_ long away. Tomas is already about _this_ much taller." Kuai waved his hand about above his head. Then he looked contemplative and sad. He looked back out to sea. "Tomas would have liked the ocean."

"You think the Grandmaster would have let me take him too?"

"No..." Kuai looked down, "But I still miss him... There was a weird girl at school who kept laughing at me. Then there was a boy who kept asking about intestines and what floor of a building I lived on."

"Hmm."

Kuai glanced back up. His brother was looking forward but his eyes were far away, no doubt bent on scheming and planning the next course of action in his mission. Kuai sighed. They walked the rest of the way home in silence.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Just a short chapter with some more small precious moments that they don't get too many of, here or ever.


	6. Ripples in the Pool

The evening was busy. It was the light that Bi-Han could not get used to: the bright curled halogen bulbs at his work station that winked and flashed off midnight blue glass, emerald green bottles, and clear winking crystal; the dimmer romance of faux electric chandeliers hanging above their clients; the near invisibility of feel-good candle stumps shuddering erratically in coloured plexi-glass holders. A perfect black mirror reflection of the restaurant stood so clear in the large windows that it made the vicinity look twice as large. He shook his head slightly and blinked.

He had been working here a week and knew that he exhausted his fellow bar staff, who had to pick up all his slack. It transpired that he had been hired primarily on cheek and looks, and that knowing something about the job itself would have helped a lot. The only reason he had not yet been fired yet was because he was bribing his bar partner with his own share of the tips to cover for his excessive incompetence.

"Ah, Jinhai. Two on the left just entering. Maybe you could work your charm on them. They were in here two weeks ago. No tip, all stares, grins, and whispering. They irritated me no end. I cannot be bothered with them today."

Liwei was a man who managed to pretend to be perpetually amiable, whilst always seething on the inside. When he had had enough of pretending to be amiable to people, he passed them on to Bi-Han, who would stare at a customer until their insides went cold. It was a mutually beneficial strategy.

Two men in dark navy suits and pale open collar shirts stepped jauntily past the tables, ignoring the floundering seating staff. The sauntered up and lounged at the bar. They nudged each other, glancing at Liwei every now and again, and showing each other messages on mobile phones, and laughing loudly. Bi-Han planted himself in front of them, making the glass cabinets beneath rattle. He set them with piercing eyes and said in authoritative but horribly broken Cantonese,

"What do you want to drink."

The men set down their phones and looked at Bi-Han.

"Uh… Mai Tai and a Margarita."

Bi-Han looked down at the hidden list just below the counter. He ran his finger down the alphabetical list. 'Mai Tai' was labelled _JUST LET LIWEI DO THIS ONE._ He moved his finger on to 'Margarita'. This one was labelled ' _lime one from last Tuesday'_. He wasn't very good at remembering cocktails. He turned covertly to his fellow staff member.

"Muay Thai."

"Christ, Jinhai. _Mai Tai_ not Muay Thai. What is with you? Okay I've got this, you make up the other cocktail and stop those morons from looking at me, even their eyes offend me." Liwei smiled politely at the men and turned to the spirits.

Bi-Han took a lime out of the fridge and set it in front of the men. They were nodding at Liwei again and grinning to each other. Bi-Han took a twenty centimetre long knife out from under the counter. He chopped the lime twice in a split second movement. The blade flashed through the air and cut the coloured light into pieces. The two men flinched, eyes wide in their heads.

"Lime in a Margarite." Bi-Han intoned flatly. He ran the fruit caringly around the around the rim of the glass. He gave an empty hollow smile, the kind he usually reserved just before he pulled a knife through someone's throat. He upturned the glass and ground it down into a tub of salt, eyes fixing on the men as the salt crystals shattered and protested under the force with which he twisted the glass and ground it into its surface. He set the glass to one side. The men had stopped talking and were staring with a fascinated disturbed horror at the brutality Bi-Han managed to crush into the act.

Bi-Han broke open a cocktail shaker and poured out a measure, two of tequila, one of Cointreau (each labelled especially for him with a hidden sticky note). He took the remain halves of the limes and pulverised them in a single fist squeeze. Their juices ran slowly through his hand, dripping into the shaker.

"Lime in a Margarite." He repeated, pleased to see that their eyes were fixed on the oozing drip from his fist. He turned away, set his palm over the shaker and filled it covertly with cryomancy ice. He set its metal parts together with a _clack_ then held the whole shaker in his palms, cooling it rapidly so that small gasping clouds of cold trembled in the air. He turned back around and with one hand violently shook the concoction. The metal shaker thundered dully with ice under the vigorous, continuous, bone-rattling shake. Bi-Han set it down with the care one might a spine-shattered corpse in danger of falling apart. He poured in one smooth motion into the prepared glass and pushed it towards the men. Liwei set the other cocktail down too and smiled at the men,

"Have a nice day."

The two men took their glasses in complete silence and went to sit down.

"Tip." Bi-Han said. The men looked back round. "For my friend. He works very hard." The men returned silently and set down a few notes hesitantly. They walked quickly to a table on the far side of the restaurant.

Liwei stowed the notes in a jar under the counter.

"You're getting pretty quick at that Margarita. You didn't serve it warm, did you?"

"No. Cold. Very cold."

"Mm. Put the fear of god into them two. A good combination. Let's hope they're less rude next time. If there is a next time." He winked at Bi-Han, then carefully removed the long knife from out of Bi-Han's reach. "Ah, Jinhai, you're my favourite work colleague."

Bi-Han's eyes had trained on the door once more. Liwei followed his gaze.

"Uh uh. Leave this to me. I've got this."

"No." Bi-Han was firm. "I'll take care of this."

A group of about eight had entered. They had a different kind of swagger. They wore silk patterned shirts, or heavy loud blazers that opened onto tattooed chests. They brought in half smoked cigarettes, a languid professionalism, and an excess of mirror glasses. They spilled into the low sofas in the waiting area, passing jokes between each other in a mocking way that betrayed a hierarchy amongst them. Bi-Han honed in on them as he sorted through their behaviour, ignoring the whispered rant Liwei was giving his ear. There was a loud bulky man with a thick load of muscle that everyone was turned to face. Bi-Han could see, though, that his posture, arms folded across a thrust out chest, legs crossed, was angled in such a way as to be defiant and yet also defensive. Across from him sat the real head of the group, he surmised. This man was lean in build but still wily, muscled more like a cat than his bear of a friend. He had an impractical but no doubt stylish flop to his hair and leaned back, relaxing easily on the sofa, content in the shadows, slow in his gestures, fearing nothing in his movements.

Bi-Han strode forward. He stopped before them and took a note pad out of his black shirt. He looked at the reclining man,

"Can I get you gentlemen some drinks?"

He took down their requests diligently, eyes always returning to the ringleader. There was curiosity in those eyes and a sharp cleverness. Bi-Han kept deference in his own gaze. He was well practised at avoiding iring his superiors at the Temple after some cocky act had turned their attention. He walked back to the bar still siphoning through the information he had read in their eyes, their clothes, and their postures. He handed the notepad to Liwei.

"What is this!? Classical Chinese? Who even writes like this any more!? Jinhai, come on, I need your attention. Read this out for me, we can't displease those guys..." He lowered his voice and came close to Bi-Han, "They are Triad, ok?"

Bi-Han glanced back at his colleague, for the first time noting the fear in his eye. He helped Liwei complete the order. The group were seated quickly and waited on by more than the usual number of attendees. Their food came swiftly and they enjoyed it over a second round of drinks. They stayed late, joking and laughing, blustering and shooting one another down with merciless humour and well-crafted back-hand compliments. Bi-Han knew each one by face, posture, and accent before the evening was out.

The restaurant was nearly empty and cigarettes were lighting up over coffee and whisky, when the reclining man beckoned Bi-Han over. Bi-Han froze momentarily. Liwei was taking empty glasses to the kitchen. Bi-Han extracted himself from the bar and walked over carefully. The conversation at the raucous table died down. The loud man Bi-Han had first identified looked him over as he approached.

"What's this? If I wanted more drinks I would have thrown my shot glass." He laughed and a few laughed with him.

"I invited him over." The ringleader sipped coffee. "I'm curious as to why a barman needs to be built like a tank."

Bi-Han could feel his heartbeat picking up.

"I squeeze a lot of limes."

The reclining man smiled and his friends laughed. Except the brash man. He clearly thought jokes were his domain. The brash man stood and sized up to Bi-Han. He had weight and size on his side, but Bi-Han decided his own youth and condition were a far greater advantage. At that moment Liwei returned from the kitchen and gave a cry of dismay.

"Jinhai!" He near ran over and bowed low to the group, "Sirs, I am sorry, please forgive my colleague any insult he has done."

"Let the men talk why don't you," The brash man gestured vaguely for Liwei to leave. Bi-Han bristled. He'd grown tired of throwaway comments like this, this evening. He set, the brash man with cold sharp eyes,

"Liwei _is_ a man."

Silence dropped deadly in the room, all conversation snuffed out. The brash man's eyes were lit like beacons in the night. Liwei moved uneasily on the edge of Bi-Han's vision.

"It's just a mistake, Jinhai, don't worry about it. It happens all the time, it's not worth getting in trouble over."

"You should listen to your friend." The brash man said softly.

"Stand down, Tobias." The ringleader sipped at his espresso. Bi-Han turned easy, unafraid eyes to the speaker. "Apologise to the gentlemen." The ringleader continued, "Hong Kong is progressive, and so are we."

Bi-Han could see the slow baking of anger into offended pride and full blown hatred. He sighed internally in irritation. He had not planned on making any enemies tonight.

"I apologise." The brash man said without an ounce of contrition. He tilted his head vaguely at Liwei and then at Bi-Han.

The situation diffused enough for the frozen life of the restaurant to return to a semblance of normality. When the group stood up to leave, the ringleader sidled over to the bar. He set down a hefty tip.

"For my friend's rudeness."

Bi-Han bowed his head then looked back up,

"I hope your friend does not hold a grudge against Liwei. This misunderstanding was my doing, not his."

The ringleader smiled slowly,

"Don't worry, it is you Tobias has a quarrel with." The ringleader studied him, "That does not bother you?"

"Should it?"

The ringleader looked him up and down.

"I don't know. Let's see, shall we. Jinhai, was it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'm sure we'll see each other again soon, Jinhai."

* * *

 **Author Note:** Master of being unecessarily violent in mundane situations. Good guy Bi-Han, he'll stick up for you but probably make everything ten times worse in the process.


	7. A New Home

Bi-Han hung up a wet coat as he came in. He slipped off his shoes and closed the door very quietly. His shift finished late and his brother needed his sleep. He heard bare feet padding on the kitchen wood floor. His eyes immediately trained toward the door. A ripple of cold flowed down his arm into a long blade of ice. He moved silently into the kitchen. Kuai Liang lit the gas stove and turned round. He yelped when he saw Bi-Han and the ice on his arm. Bi-Han sighed in irritation. He crunched the ice sword in his hand to nothing and let its shards crumble to fine white dust.

"It's one in the morning, Kuai Liang. What are you doing up."

"I knew you'd be home soon so I was going to heat up some soup!" He moved a heavy pan with difficulty and set it on the stove.

"Soup?"

"I made it!" Kuai beamed up at his brother, "I learned how in school, so I made it for my dinner, and I saved some for you."

Bi-Han leant over the pan suspiciously. It smelt good. He continued taking off his work clothes, flinging off the shirt he had to wear and collapsing into a chair. He put his hands behind his head and listened to the rain outside falling hard into the gutters.

"Any luck?"

Bi-Han opened one eye,

"What did I tell you about asking me about my mission?"

Kuai sat opposite him at the table, chin propped on two hands, sleepy eyes trying to blink wide awake. Kuai kicked his legs under the table and tilted his head, fixing Bi-Han with pleading eyes.

"Don't look at me like that. Yes, I made some progress. The goons finally turned up- low levels in the gang I mean to infiltrate. I'd been hoping to place myself at one of their more regular haunts, but apparently my charm wasn't up to standards elsewhere."

"I'm surprised they want you at that posh place either, Bi-Han."

Bi-Han tilted his hand and projected a hailstone at Kuai's forehead.

" _Ow!_ " Kuai rubbed the small red spot on his head, "What, it's true! I can't imagine you serving anyone drinks. Apart from maybe serving the Grandmaster tea. But I can't imagine you giving alcohol to a regular civilian."

Bi-Han rocked back on his chair and lifted the lid of the pan to check it. He rocked back again.

"How was school?"

Kuai sighed and folded his arms on the table.

"Okay, I guess. There's a lot of writing in English. They don't give us brushes like at the Temple. At break time everyone talks about things I don't know about. I just have to stay quiet."

Bi-Han stood and begun ladling soup into a bowl,

"You're there to learn skills, Kuai, not make friends."

Kuai sighed again and laid his head on the table. He watch Bi-Han bring his soup to the table, blow on it and sip at a spoon dangling with noodles. He waited with large hopeful eyes. Bi-Han tried to ignore the small face upturned in anticipation in the corner of his eye.

"The soup is nice."

Kuai became radiant.

"Now bed."

"I'll wait with you. A few minutes won't make any difference. I want to hear about all the gangsters you beat up!"

"I didn't beat up _any_ , Kuai. Infiltration doesn't always mean killing everyone. Sometimes to get close to a target, you have to be patient."

"Patient for a whole year?" Kuai muttered sullenly.

"Perhaps. We shall see. My targets are extremely powerful and extremely elusive. To execute this mission perfectly, I must hide in plain sight. They will not see me coming because they will trust me with their lives." Bi-Han leaned forward and his eyes twinkled, "I shall be their shield and their sword, loved and dear to them. Then one day I shall hang back; they shall walk forward. It will be their last step." He laughed at the uncertainty in Kuai's eyes and continued his soup.

"You're being creepy again. I know you do that just to try and scare me!" Kuai hopped down from the table. "I think you're just trying to make yourself feel better about the fact that Sub-Zero is only good at freezing while _I_ can make an excellent soup!… Hey, Bi-Han?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you think my codename will be? Yours sounds so cool and badass."

"Cool and _what?_ "

"It's a word I learned at school. I want a name like Sub-Zero. How about Absolute Zero. Absolute Zero is so much colder than your name. We learned about it at school. Also it makes it sound like I'm a better version of Sub-Zero, which would serve you right for being better at everything than me."

"The Grandmaster chooses you codename, Kuai."

"I'll slip him a note ' _give Kuai a better name than Bi-Han,_ _signed Sektor_ '."

"Go to bed, Kuai. You're not missing five AM cryomancy just because you made me soup."

"If Sektor was Grandmaster he'd give me an amazing name just to spite you."

"Sektor hates you too. And he knows about that stint you and Tomas pulled. The only reason he hasn't run to the Grandmaster is because he's gunning for revenge. Literally gunning. I saw him testing out firearms to mount to his armour last month."

"Y...you're lying!"

"I am not. I wouldn't put it past Sektor to stick a rocket launcher on his arm. Subtlety was never one of his strong points."

"Well, whatever, you'll protect me."

Bi-Han raised an eyebrow,

"I won't be around forever, you know."

"Sure you will. Did you know there was a super hero who got frozen in ice for years and years? You could do that and live _forever._ Except you'd have to be a super villain because super heroes don't flick ice at their little brotheeeerrrs, Bi-Han! Don't to that again!" Kuai ran shrieking into the next room, arms over his head to shield from the rain of hailstones coming in his direction. A broom handle was thumped loudly on the floor upstairs. Kuai looked up.

"Huh, you woke the grumpy lady who lives upstairs, Bi-Han." Kuai crawled into his bed. He yawned. "I like these beds but I sort of miss my mat that lay straight on the floor. I liked seeing the room with my head on the ground. Everything looks so big and peaceful that way-"

"Elder gods, do you ever shut up."

Kuai grinned. He yawned again and closed his eyes.

Bi-Han set about cleaning up in the kitchen, rinsing pans, dishes and spoons. He dried them up and put them away. When he was done he stepped into the bedroom. Kuai was fast asleep with one arm handing out of bed. Bi-Han gently moved his brother's arm back into bed and pulled the cover over him.

"T...Tomas..." Kuai said sleepily.

"Tomas will be waiting when we go home." Bi-Han said softly. He brushed Kuai's hair from his cheek and waited until all concern left his expression. When he was sure Kuai slept untroubled he went back to the kitchen. He removed a mirror from the wall and pulled out a scroll that had been concealed behind it. He laid it out on the table: a map of Lin Kuei intelligence to date on the different Triad gangs operating in Hong Kong. He brought out his brush, unscrewed a pot of ink and began to add his notes and details to the lowest branch.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Greetings from the depths of Scottish snow. Just a short chapter this week. Things start moving a little quicker from here on out.


	8. For Pride and Honour

Kuai Liang kept to the walls as he sloped through the corridors. He was dodging Nianzu. There was some kind of internal political struggle happening in his class that he had apparently involved himself in. One day last week, he had foolishly told Nianzu that he'd had enough of describing human internal organs. That had been enough to somehow situate himself on the losing side of a long running feud. When troubles like this occurred in the Temple he usually just slunk into the shadows. He was one of the smallest and youngest at the Temple: it was almost always better to show deference and keep his head down. For the first time in his life, Kuai was amidst people his own size and weight whom he could mostly likely take. Although, Bi-Han had said no martial arts and keep a low profile... He winced at himself in recollection. But hadn't Bi-Han also said the best way to solve a problem was to punch it? He wound his way pensively towards his next class. He was so caught up in thought that he bumped into Jia.

"Are you hiding?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"What, no?"

"You're skulking around. Don't tell me you're scared."

"I'm avoiding unnecessary confrontations."

"Ugh." Jia folded her arms and blew her fringe out of her face. Kuai had wound up on Jia's side of the feud. Before he had found himself there, only Jia had been on Jia's side of the feud.

"How did you manage to irritate everyone anyway?"

"I live in the wrong tower." Kuai looked at her. She followed up this comment so quickly Kuai almost forgot it had been said in sincerity, "And I make a mean comeback so damn quick I leave dust trails behind me." She winked.

Nianzu rounded the corner chatting with a friend. His light blue shirt was pressed and looked softer than the one that Jia wore. Kuai hadn't even managed to get Bi-Han to buy him a shirt yet. Now that Kuai looked at him, he saw that Nianzu had everything just a little bit nicer. His shoes were shiny even though it had been raining all week. And his school satchel was gleaming leather, polished and not battered. Everything about Nianzu was well kept. Apart from his temper.

He looked at Jia with her fierce eyes and pigtails tied up in red ribbons,

"Where does Nianzu live?"

She gave Kuai a canny look,

"Slow, but you'll get there in the end, Nongfu."

"Don't call me that!" Kuai wanted a cool nickname like 'Sub-Zero', not some farming name.

Their bickering awakened Nianzu's eye. He frowned. Jia set him with a ferocious dark look. She whispered out the side of her mouth to Kuai.

"Hey, Nongfu, do they teach you how to fight out in the country?"

"W-w-what!" Kuai stammered and stared at her.

"I know Wing Chun, I'm gonna take them in break after mid-period."

"What?! Jia are you crazy there's about six of them!"

"It will be a good fight. Six guys against a girl, whoever wins I come out on top."

"That's no way to win a fight!" Kuai looked at her aghast, "You've got to think smart! Catch them when they're unawares and in smaller groups. Win meaningful victories that they can't hold you directly accountable for."

She looked at Kuai with narrowed eyes.

"We're going to need a secret handshake. I'm making you my top strategist. You can be the brains and I'll be the muscle."

"No no no-"

"Yup."

The teacher called the pupils to line and they fell into a silent single file. They began trooping into the classroom. Jia gave him a salute as she sat down in her seat. Kuai swallowed. Bi-Han would kill him if he found out about this.

Two hours later they were standing on the high walkway over the school yard. It was technically out of bounds during break time, but Kuai had shown Jia how to climb up very quietly, without even having to go into a school building.

"You're good at getting places you're not meant to, Tao."

"Thanks!" Kuai was genuinely pleased by that compliment.

"But how are we going to fight them from up here?"

Kuai reached into his school satchel,

"I've got two eggs."

" _Two eggs._ There are six people. And besides, who wants to throw eggs? They might think we're scared. Or worse still, they might not know its us!"

Kuai stared at her incredulously. She pulled herself up and leaned over the wooden banister.

"If I dropped down on them from here I could take them out even faster!"

"That's… you might really hurt them, Jia. You don't want to get in trouble, do you?"

"Yup." She pulled herself up and stood on the railing. She held out her arms for balance, then bawled down at the group of six schoolboys all in their sky blue uniforms, "Hey, you?! It's time for justice!" She jumped down.

In that moment, Kuai's eyes were opened. This wasn't just a schoolgirl, but a fearless warrior, concerned with pride, honour, and willing to go to any lengths to seize it. Her flying pigtails, contorted face of rage, and fists raised to strike, stayed caught as a freeze frame in his mind. All he could think of looking back on that moment was how foolish the Lin Kuei were only to let boys join.

A second later he was on the floor next to her, fists raised. She had landed on top of a large, rotund boy. He was so large and rotund, that thankfully no lasting damage looked like it had been done to either. He was rubbing his behind however, and spitting fury, with something like tears starting in his eyes. The other boys had recovered from their surprise and turned to face them.

"You don't have to stay, Tao. You're the brains remember." Jia gave graciously. Kuai said nothing.

Nianzu glared at Kuai.

"Now you've really gone and done it, country boy. I thought we could be friends because you knew about guts and cool stuff, but now we have to be enemies forever." Nianzu rolled up his sleeves. His friends did the same.

"Stay behind me, Tao."

Kuai's concerns from just earlier had gone. He had been worried for Jia taking on six people, or getting in trouble, or hurting herself. He had been worried about breaking Bi-Han's rule of no fighting and keeping a low profile. But now that the moment was upon him, with nothing more that could be done to prevent it, he was easy and calm. His limbs were relaxed and remembered the shapes that nearly nine years in the Lin Kuei had taught him.

Everyone seemed to move very slowly. A boy tried to push him, but his hands were predictable and sluggish to Kuai. He side stepped them, wrapped both arms up with one of his and struck the boy on the chin with a palm strike that shattered his balance. Kuai let go of the arms in time to let the momentum carry his attacker to the floor. The others were still moving towards him with their first attack, not yet fully realising that one of their member was on the floor. Kuai shifted his weight and kicked out with one leg, deliberately missing the next boy, but planting it behind his heel. He gave the boy one quick shove, and he fell backwards over Kuai's foot to join his friend on the floor. The next boy had grown wise, he pulled out of his first attack and put up a guard – two fists like a boxer. Kuai tilted his head, looking easily through all the spaces in that guard. A student his age in the temple with a guard like that would have been wrapped over the knuckles with a bamboo rod. Kuai analysed his primary targets: distraction by going for the eyes then a short strike to the throat. He knew his opponent should die within a few seconds depending on whether he collapsed the wind pipe.

"Tao? You OK?" Jia shouted back over her shoulder, not looking at him. Kuai started. He blinked, smelt the air, the humidity, felt the wind on his cheek just touched with old rain, and, as if awakening from a dream, remembered that this was not the Lin Kuei and that not every strike had to be with intent to kill.

He swivelled out the way just in time to avoid a punch thrown by his opponent. He snatched the hand out of the air on its way back to its owner and followed the force through, using his opponent's weight twisted back on him to throw him hard to the ground. The boy curled up in pain on impact and groaned, grasping the wrist Kuai had thrown him with. Kuai turned around. One of Jia's victims was clutching a bloody nose and another had a bleeding lip and black eye. Jia herself was sitting on top of Nianzu, her knees trapping his arms.

"How's that for relocation! I relocated your face with my fist! Tell your father that one!"

A circle of children had been attracted by the commotion. They stood in awe looking down at Jia and shouting, belatedly, ' _fight! fight! fight!'._

"Get off! Get off or you'll be sorry! You're just the same as your criminal mother!"

Jia punched Nianzu hard in the face. Kuai heard his nose crack.

Kuai saw a tall head bobbing towards them, pushing through the crowd of children.

"What's going on here!" A teacher demanded as she tried to get to the epicentre of the chaos.

"Time to go, Jia!" Kuai put his hand on her shoulder. Jia grabbed his hand instantly and twisted it into a lock. Kuai put his hand on hers, flipping the lock and pulling her up off Nianzu. "You want to get in trouble or what?"

She looked up at him. Her eyes were dark and angry. Tears winked furious in their corners. She nodded reluctantly. Kuai held her hand and tugged her away from the teacher and into the crowd. He wound his way through the oggling students and pulled Jia behind a classroom. He let her go and glanced back round at the crowd.

"Are you crazy? No fight is worth being caught!" At least not at the Temple anyway.

Jia still looked angry. She folded her arms and her neat fringe fell sullenly over her eyes.

Kuai looked her,

"This isn't just about living in a tower, is it..." She was unforthcoming. "What did Nianzu mean about your mother?"

Jia put her lip out and said nothing. Kuai sighed. The crowd was thinning. He could see the teacher helping Nianzu up.

"My mother isn't a criminal. It's Nianzu's father that is! Buying up the blocks, to destroy them and gentrify them!"

Kuai frowned,

"What's 'gentrify'?"

"I don't know," She admitted, "But it's worse than destroying them, and my mother says that's the real crime! Just because it's not breaking the law doesn't mean it's not robbing people!"

Kuai frowned again. He supposed everyone here would think the things Bi-Han did were criminal _and_ breaking the law. It was strange, he had never thought of that before. It was odd to think that the strict codes of the Lin Kuei weren't codes for everyone.

"Hey, Tao." Jia sounded thoughtful again. Kuai was glad, because her angry voice was almost as frightening as Bi-Han's, "You got out of my wrist lock pretty well. My mother says my wrist locks are pretty good..."

Kuai's heart beat fast. He shrugged,

"Just lucky I guess."

"You managed ok with those three other guys too..."

Kuai remembered how Bi-Han always made light of things he asked him. He laughed the same laugh as he did,

"They practically all fell over each other! All I did was push one!"

Jia looked uncertain,

"...Okay."

"You were pretty amazing though! I've never seen a girl fight before."

Jia stared at him,

"Why, are girls in the countryside all wusses or something? Like the guys." She grinned at this addition. Clearly pleased with herself. Kuai was a little slow picking up the insult in a second language, and by the time he'd caught on, Jia was checking the playground status. "That's the bell for next class. Ungh, Ms Feng is still hanging about looking for perpetrators."

"Maybe we should split up." His sense of solidarity had been pushed to its limits today. If they split, he wouldn't get caught, and that meant Bi-Han wouldn't be called into the school office for the second time in one week.

"What? But you're good at hiding and getting out of sticky situations, Tao." He nearly said _exactly._ "You've got to help me get to history class without them seeing me too!"

"You think Nianzu won't have told on you?"

"If he has, he's a snitching coward!"

Kuai left that line of inquiry. He breathed out and surveyed the scene about him. A humid mist was rolling down off the hill and forest beyond the school. The classroom they were behind was a sheer wall, hard to climb, but the supports for the wooden runway they had jumped from had pegs bolting it together at intervals.

"Can you climb that?" He pointed at it. She nodded slowly. He hoped she wasn't just saying that out of pride.

Kuai waited until a thick swatch of mist edged their way, and moved quickly over to the wooden support. He clambered up, fingers finding purchase on the damp slick wood. He pulled himself over the bannister. Jia came up after him, as good as her word, and he helped her up next to him. They crouched low so that the wood bars gave them cover. Ms Feng was still surveying the yard with an eagle eye. They could see her through the bannisters, brushing condensation off her red jacket, cleaning her glasses and peering around for her culprits. Kuai kept low and led the way to the door into history building at the end of the walkway. He snaked a hand up to the handle. It squeaked as he pulled it. Jia sucked her breath in. Kuai nudged the door open and they squeezed through, pulling it shut behind them. They both breathed a sigh of relief. The history corridor was warm, dimly lit, smelt of old chewing gum, and was filled with the sound of classrooms settling down. It was also full of Mr Martin, head of year seven.

He stared down at them. It was a long way, Kuai thought. He remembered the way Mr Martin looked down even on Bi-Han.

"Tao Zho and Jia Li-heng. Is there a collective noun for that? A conspiracy, perhaps?" He had mild gingery brown eyebrows that never quite looked angry, but somehow still conveyed that he was. He had pale watery eyes and thin, studious-looking glasses, that lent him a permanent air of superiority.

"We're no conspiracy, Mr Martin..." Jia twisted her face in an apologetic wince.

"Just lost." Kuai supplied, and, remembering how the last encounter had gone, "And on our way to the school office."

"Or history room 4b. If you know where that is?"

Kuai thought they were the perfect double act. Apart from him and Tomas of course. Mr Martin seemed not to think so.

"I do in fact know, Miss Li-heng, since I am also head of history. Hence my standing in the history corridor at this very moment. The same one you've been coming to for the last few months for your history classes."

Jia gave a toothy, unconvincing smile. Kuai cringed internally.

"Consider this a last warning to both of you. Get to your classes on time. If you put another toe out of line, I will be calling your brothers in and giving you both detention."

Kuai and Jia had a chance to exchange mutual looks of confused surprise at the mention of the each others' brothers, before they were whisked away to their respective desks in history room 4b.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Oops lets not assassinate the children.

Thanks so much for all your kind reviews and comments on this site and A03! You guys are very kind :) Bi-Han chapter up next with some more action.


	9. The Altercation

It was just after half past nine. The night beyond the windows was faint through glaring reflections of coloured light. A man pushed open the glass door to the restaurant.

"Can we get a hand with our baggage?"

Bi-Han knew him. He was from the crowd that had entered before. The Triad crowd. A waiter went over to help.

"No, no, you look busy. How about _him_?" He pointed directly at Bi-Han.

Bi-Han breathed slowly. He set down a tea towel he had been using to wipe glasses. He took an apron off and laid it over the counter.

"I've got this," He smiled woodenly at the floundering waiter.

Outside the night was blue. White lights glanced off puddles and a fat moon frowned down through a riot of neon. The shadows were long and angular. The air was heavy with pollution. Bi-Han wasn't often given over to sentimentality, but he missed the high clear mountain air of the Temple. And the cold sharp snap of the icy Himalayan wind.

"It's Jinhai, right?" The languid ringleader was sitting on a low ornamental wall smoking. "Thanks for coming out. Got a problem I need help with." He gestured. A broad man stepped into the light, his shirt was off and a functional sash was tied around his baggy trousers. "Tobias, here, feels that you disrespected him last time we came round here. He's got… some baggage he wants to get off his chest." The ringleader gave a smile, but it wasn't a kind smile.

Tobias thrust out his chest and folded his arms, showing off his muscle, and an intricate tattoo wrapped about his upper arm. Bi-Han contemplated for a moment, then said,

"This is very inconvenient for me."

Tobias nearly exploded in rage. The ringleader held up a hand for silence. His face was one part amused, one part quizzical, and a few fractions from losing patience,

"Quiet, Tobias. Let the man speak now."

Bi-Han tilted his head politely,

"I'm on the clock. I can't go getting into altercations. I might lose my job."

The smoking man leaned back,

"Hear that, Tobias, he might lose his job. What do you say, want to wait til Mr Jinhai's shift is done?"

"Screw _Mr Jinhai's_ job."

The smoking man shrugged,

"He says screw your job. So how about this, if you beat Tobias, in compensation for inconvenience, you can have his job."

There was silence. Tobias stared at the smoking man. The other men with them, all folded over street furniture, abruptly stood straight.

"Wait a moment, Nat, this wasn't what you agreed. You said I get to hammer the kid and then we all go get burgers at Chen's..."

"And you'll get your burger, my friend. Once you've had the score settling you've been demanding all week." The smoking man turned to Bi-Han, "How's that sound to you, Jinhai? Fair compensation?"

Bi-Han shrugged non-committally. Tobias was still bristling and clearly unhappy.

The man called Nat smiled and gestured to the two of them,

"Then let's have it."

Bi-Han took off his dark green work apron and folded it carefully. He could feel eyes on the back of his neck. He laid it down on the low wall and turned to his opponent. Tobias was a good head taller than him, and broad too. There was a keen look in his eye that had no intention of losing. Bi-Han passed a tongue over his lower lip. People with a lot to lose always fought hard and dirty. It would have been enough for his plans just to show he had some skill and put this Tobias in his place, the stakes being so high were unlikely to play in his favour. Even if he won, he would have an enemy, and perhaps more besides if his opponent was popular.

He hunched his shoulders slightly to appear smaller and more unsure of himself. Being underestimated was a strong weapon in the right hands. He lifted his fists and held them high in a Western boxing guard, moving them uncertainly, as if not sure what he should be guarding. He saw a slow smile spread across Tobias's face. There was laughter from the others around them and Nat took a long draw on his cigarette. Bi-Han saw Tobias's posture relax. _Good._ Just the set-up he wanted.

"Kid, I hope for your sake those muscles aren't just for show." Tobias had that tone in his voice – certainty born of overconfidence. Just the sound of it in his voice gave Bi-Han a thrill. He tried to keep his own excitement hidden from view. In the corner of his eye he saw Nat shift. The man bore a slight frown and his cigarette was paused on the way to his lips. Bi-Han was instantly more careful, trying to suppress the adrenaline already pumping through his veins. He held his guard a little higher.

Bi-Han threw first. He made it a light jab, aiming directly for the raised guard with little power behind it. Tobias did not even need to swat the move off, he instead came straight in with a round punch. Bi-Han saw it move so slowly through the air that he had to consciously think to let the knuckles clip and graze his chin. As soon as they did however, Bi-Han was sent reeling and staggering. Tobias laughed as Bi-Han struggled to keep his balance. There was a lot of power in that blow. Bi-Han wasn't going to last long if he let even a single punch land properly, he realised. He put his guard back up, but this time turned his palms outward, staying light, arms testing the distance. A straight punch came fast for Bi-Han. He had just enough time to lean out of its way and throw an arm forward to deflect the punch. He wasn't the only one disguising his speed and prowess, then. Before he'd righted himself, a second punch flew for him with the other hand. With no power left to deflect it, Bi-Han grabbed the first arm he'd blocked, ducked under it and dragged it across Tobias's body, so that his own bulk prevented the punch from going anywhere.

"Looks like our cocktail waiter has had a little self defence training," Nat said from the wall. The comment seemed to rile up Tobias.

Bi-Han had the whole of Tobias's side exposed now, but he chose not to press the advantage. His opponent was big and angry – being in this close favoured him. _Better to keep light and at a distance for now_ , Bi-Han decided, _let the lumbering fool make a mistake in his frustration._

Tobias barely waited to right himself. He came in swinging, a cavalcade of fists that was all power and no finesse. Bi-Han ducked and weaved in and out, trying to tire and aggravate the larger man. They side-stepped back and forth before the restaurant, shattering puddles and casting distorted reflections on the windows. Tobias certainly looked more irate, but Bi-Han could see no sign of him tiring. _Time to step up the game a little._

Bi-Han broke into the punch combo with a double block that cleared the space just before him. His hands stayed light, striking pressure points on his opponent's upper arm. Each pressure point he struck caused a flinch and deadening response in Tobias' limbs. Bi-Han struck his knuckles against Tobias' jawbone, and finished his flurry with a hammerfist to the temple. He used the fractional stun to bring his elbow into the man's chest and free up his next arm for an upper cut straight into his gut. He saw Tobias struggle to breath after the gut punch and used the moment to ram home his advantage. His forward momentum kept coming – first one arm, then the next, then the first again. Tobias staggered backwards, balance flailing, but his longer legs quickly made space between them that Bi-Han could not cover with enough speed to keep up the assault. Bi-Han saw the totter and daze in his opponent's movement and relented. Tobias was folded over gasping, guard in pieces and breath shattered. He clutched his gut, then his chest, wheezing through the agony of the onslaught and closing his eyes as he struggled to stay on his feet. Bi-Han stood still and regarded him with empty, calm eyes.

Nat gave a slow loud clap. He stood up and gave a mild smile,

"Ah, Tobias. The kid's got flare. He's got you bested." Nat gave a dramatic gesture toward the bar, "Don't worry I can think of a restaurant with a staff opening at their cocktail bar."

Tobias was still doubled over from the gut punch. He looked up at Nat, pure hatred in his eyes. Bi-Han stood awkward and suddenly wary. The rain was falling steadily: not fast, not slow, just continuous and deliberate. Cars moved up and down the street, headlights swinging bright and turning all glass to bright flashing mirrors. Neon sunk in blurred shivers in disturbed puddles beneath their feet. There was a smell of damp in the air, and hot take-away food in paper parcels. And Nat's cigarette burning in an unattended stump. Bi-Han noticed it as a cluster of bright ember pin pricks. And the white flash as a car moved by and its headlights lit up the steel blade in Tobias's hand.

Bi-Han leapt back as the blade came darting forward in short sudden lunges. He flinched and before he could think two daggers of ice were in his hands, blades reversed to guard his forearms. He curled a hand across him, lacerating Tobias's knife arm with swift cuts. The man was so pumped up on survival that he barely noticed the slashes. Bi-Han's eyes dilated as he lost himself in the moment. He severed the tendons in the knife arm and carved it out of his way, he kicked the inside of the man's knee so the kneecap popped. He stepped in, sweeping with his left foot, bringing Tobias to his knees, he double slashed his ice knives through Tobias's throat before either of them could realise what was happening. There was a moment where Bi-Han and Tobias stared at each other in mutual surprise as the blood poured from Tobias's neck. His chest became a curtain of scarlet rivers and his throat spluttered in stuttering fountains. Then he slumped back dead on the ground.

Bi-Han quickly stowed the knives up his sleeve before anyone could notice they were made of ice. He turned to Nat apprehensively, genuinely confused by what he had done.

"I... He had a knife, I just... I hadn't meant t-..." Bi-Han looked down at the body. The blood had turned the puddles an oily red. He looked down at himself. There was blood on his white shirt and his black trousers. He looked anxiously round at the others. They had the hostility of a wolf pack in their stance. Bi-Han took a step back. "Sorry," He said quickly to Nat, "Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

Nat clapped him on the shoulder, making Bi-Han jump. He laughed suddenly in the quiet night.

"Gods, Tobias really knew how to pick a fight! Kid, calm down you look like mouse caught in a trap. You just took down my heavyweight muscle in a two minute knuckle fight."

"About the knives," Bi-Han said hesitantly,

"He should have known in your line of work you might be armed! His own damn fault for not checking! Have to say I wasn't expecting a knife fighter! What do you do with those cocktail lemons when no ones looking." He laughed again. His friends stood down, but were still bristling.

Bi-Han felt like a Lin Kuei rookie returning home after a failed mission,

"...You're not angry?"

"I said if you won you get to take his place didn't I?" Nat smiled, but it was unreadable to Bi-Han.

Bi-Han glanced down at the body, then up at the bright gold glow of the restaurant window.

"What should I do? The body, I mean. And my job. Will Liwei get into trouble? And police! There are police, right?" There were so many additional protocols when posing as a civilian. It would be so easy to vanish into the night and leave all this behind. How did one go about maintaining cover with a dead body on the ground?

"Jinhai," Nat put an arm around Bi-Han's shoulders, "When you work for me, things like this become a lot easier to deal with. But I'm not going to force you. You can still walk away if you wish, no retribution, no strings attached."

Bi-Han shook his head.

"You want me to take care of this mess? Look out for you?"

Bi-Han nodded.

"No problem, Jinhai." Nat clicked is fingers twice at pointed to two of his people and the body on the ground.

"I don't want Liwei to get in trouble." Bi-Han wasn't sure why, but it felt important that Liwei not be dragged into this.

"Don't worry, it's all taken care of." Nat pressed a wad of notes wrapped in an elastic band into Bi-Han's fingers. "Go to your boss, tell him your resigning effective tonight. And give him this courtesy of Nathaniel Yeung, okay?"

Bi-Han nodded silently.

"Put your apron back on. Don't want to scare off the customers with a blood soaked shirt!" Nat smiled at him.

Bi-Han nodded again and did as he was told. He felt abuzz but somehow also empty and confused. He felt a little like it was his first kill all over again.

He wandered back into the restaurant. Liwei looked up quickly from the bar. He wound his way through seated clientele until he reached Bi-Han's side.

"Jinhai? Are you alright? You've a bruise on your chin. Everything ok?" His eyes went straight to the notes in Bi-Han's hand, "Oh shit."

"It's fine. Everything's taken care of."

"Jinhai, don't get involved. Whatever it is, the other option is better. Go hand that back, say you'll handle it alone. Jinhai, I'm serious. This isn't the countryside, this isn't China."

Bi-Han set his hand on Liwei's shoulder. He never initiated contact with anyone other than Kuai Liang. Unless it was to hurt someone. He was careful as he reassured Liwei. He looked into his eyes and let down his mask.

Liwei relented, the fight going out of his face,

"If this is what you want," Liwei sounded resigned and empty. Bi-Han was surprised at his emotion, "But just be careful. They are in the business of owning favours and the people who owe them."

Bi-Han nodded. He squeezed Liwei's shoulder slightly and moved on to find the manager.

The twin suits who had interviewed him were silent and pale as Bi-Han handed over the cash. It was a familiar look. One he saw everyday back home when he happened to glance at a servant working in the Temple. He walked out easily.

Ten minutes later he was in a cab, squeezed between two of his victim's colleagues as they clinked larger bottles over his head and talked about what size burger they would order at Joe Chen's. Bi-Han wasn't sure what a burger was and he had never drunk any alcohol before so had declined it. He sat quietly. Neon streets went by in a blur. He wondered if Kuai Ling was waiting up for him at home. He had a feeling he wouldn't be back for a long time yet.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Bi-Han the killing machine wishes he was good at more than killing people. But then again it gets him to where he wants to be so he's ultimately not that fussed.

Thanks again for the kind comments and reviews, I read them all and they mean a lot to me!


	10. Change of Pace

Kuai Liang woke up with a stiffness in his limbs and his cheek stuck to the wood of the kitchen table. He blinked in the morning light. He jumped up quickly and ran to the bedroom. Both low beds were unslept in. He ran back to the kitchen and pulled down the pan from the stove. Uneaten soup sloshed in the bottom. He set it back on the stove and put the lid on top. He chewed his lip. He looked down at the crumpled clothes he was wearing and went to change into something new. He washed his face, pausing to marvel once more at the way water came straight out of the tap when he turned it on. He put his school books in his bag and looked in the mirror. Bi-Han still hadn't bought him the blue shirt that everyone else wore to school. If he stood in a certain light his shirt sort of looked blue. He sighed and went to the fridge. He pulled a carton of milk out the fridge and sipped it. The frothy fat lined his lips. He wasn't allowed milk at the Temple. He looked at the front door. He sat back down at the kitchen table and held his bookbag to him.

Soon the school bus pulled up outside the door. Its horn blared in the quiet morning. Kuai reluctantly picked up his bag and opened the door. He looked up and down the street hopefully. He lowered his eyes and let the front door click shut behind him. He climbed slowly up the steps onto the school bus.

Kuai Liang was silent during school that morning. He worked out maths sums on blue squared paper with pointed pencils, then copied labels from a geography book onto wobbly mountains in his exercise book. When he looked at the mountains in his textbook, they reminded him of home. He leaned low over his work in case anyone thought he looked sad. At break time he wandered off on his own and pulled himself onto a fence-pole up high behind the science buildings. Jia found him within moments.

"You're good at finding hiding spots, Tao."

 _Not that good,_ thought Kuai, but he did not reply.

"Are you bothered about that fight? Because I don't think Nianzu told on us. I mean, that's good and bad news, because it for sure means he's planning revenge."

Kuai looked at the forests up high above the school. He wondered if they ever saw snow like the snows the Temple knew.

"Okay, not the fight." Jia pulled herself up with difficulty and sat on a nearby pole. "What's up, Tao?"

Kuai stayed quiet for a while, and Jia did not interrupt him.

"My brother didn't come home yesterday."

Jia sat for a bit,

"That's ok." She said at last. "Adults do things like that. Sometimes they go away for a while. Doesn't mean they won't be back."

"I'm worried he's in trouble."

Jia thought again,

"Does he often get into trouble?"

Kuai frowned and thought. How could he explain to her without explaining anything at all?

"He often gets into dangerous situations. But… I guess he's usually quite good at handling them."

Jia nodded,

"My mama's the same. She's out for days at a time. My brother mostly has to do things like getting food in and looking after us. It doesn't mean she doesn't love me," Jia said fiercely, "She just has to be away some of the time."

They sat and dangled their feet.

"Hey Tao," Jia said at last, "If your brother's not home, why don't you come for tea at my house?"

"I don't know… What if he comes home and he wonders where I am? He might be worried. And I should ask him if I'm allowed first..."

"If he's not there..."

"But what if he comes back while I'm out? He'll be worried. And he'll be angry."

"You don't mind making teachers angry," She grinned.

Kuai didn't smile back,

"This is different. I'll ask him if next time he's away if I can go to yours for tea. I'll have to give him an address and a number for a telephone if you have one."

She stared at him,

"Of course we have a phone, Tao."

He nodded and kicked his legs in the air.

"Thank you for inviting me. I would like to come when I have permission."

He felt a bit better after that, and not so alone. In his next class they looked at poems, and he liked that too, because he'd never read a poem before. By lunchtime he was feeling much happier. He waited by the door to the classroom for Jia and almost smiled at her, before he noticed Nianzu behind.

Nianzu had a black eye. He shouldered past Jia and Kuai glowering at them through puffed up purple.

"Just you wait." He hissed.

Kuai chewed his cheek as he watched Nianzu go.

Kuai sat quietly on the bus home, listening to Jia chatter about cartoons and books and her favourite dish which he would miss being cooked tonight by her brother if he didn't come for tea. He said goodbye at his stop and ran home. He fumbled for his key and opened the front door. The kitchen was quiet and the lights were off. His heart sunk. He ran to the bedroom. Spread out askew on his mat, one arm over his eyes to block out the sun, lay Bi-Han, fast asleep. Kuai's eyes became like light that comes over the snow peaks and sets all afire. He hovered in the doorway, torn between wanting to run to his brother and not wishing to wake him. In the end he dropped his school bag quietly and slipped under Bi-Han's arm, curling up close to him. He heard his brother murmur an objection, but was pleased to find him too tired to carry through the drowsy threat.

When Kuai awoke there were long purple shadows casting furniture into alien shapes on the dim floorboards. He shuffled back into the warmth behind him. He lay quiet, enjoying the safety of the arm wrapped tight about him and contemplating the strangeness of the world he'd been thrown into. Despite its oddities, it seemed too easy to slip into its cares and patterns. It felt odd to remind himself that school exams didn't matter, and that Nianzu's father's opinions weren't important, or even that blue school uniform had no importance. He wondered if Bi-Han had had any similar difficulties, and got caught up in other people's cares.

"Are you worried that you'll let down the people who just want you to make some drinks for them?"

His brother stirred sleepily behind him,

"Hmm. I already quit."

Kuai blinked,

"Already?"

"Mm. I killed a man and joined the Triads."

"Bi-Han! It's barely been a week!"

"Guess I'm good at being a criminal."

Kuai sighed. He'd briefly liked the idea that his brother had a normal job. It made him feel like less of an imposter to everyone at school. For one week only, he'd been the new boy from mainland China who's brother worked at a bar. Nothing remarkable, nothing special, but so many freedoms... like milk, and poems, and mathematics, and catching a bus, and cooking, and-

"Whatever you're thinking about, you're overthinking it."

"You don't even know what I was thinking!"

"Nope, only that there was too much of it." Bi-Han sat up slowly and stretched, cat-like. Kuai rolled over and looked at him.

"I was scared when you didn't come home last night."

"I know."

Kuai sighed again when he realised the conversation was a dead end. Bi-Han stood,

"Want some food?"

Kuai nodded. He got up and collected up his school bag. He pulled out an exercise book and set it on the table. He got out his pen and pulled up a chair.

"What are you doing?"

"Homework."

Bi-Han stared at him.

"They set us work to take home and do." Kuai explained.

"Absolutely not. School work stays at school. You already have work to do at home. Like all the cryomancy forms I know you didn't get up early and do this morning."

Kuai's heart sunk. He hadn't meant to miss them, he'd just been so tired after staying up late waiting for Bi-Han to come home...

"But Bi-Han they tell people off if they don't do homework."

Bi-Han looked at him through half closed eyes,

"And I don't? Trust me, if it comes down to a game of creative punishment I'm going to win over your school every time-"

"That's not what I meant! I meant when am I going to do my school work if I have to do training all the time here?"

"How about at _school_ , Kuai Liang? I'm not having this conversation. Even contemplating the idea that your studies as a student of the Lin Kuei might come second to arbitrary civilian paperwork is pissing me off. Your school is recreational cover for my mission. I happen to think you might learn something useful there. Do not mistake that for me giving a damn about what extra work they try to impose on you. All that matters is the mission. This is all temporary. The things they care about do not matter. The things you learn there are only useful insofar as they help you grow as a person. Everything else can fuck off."

Kuai went very quiet before his brother's anger. He mumbled a quiet apology and went off back to the bedroom to clear the mats away and practice his form. He tried to keep a meditative head space as he went through the motions, but all the while he could here his brother swearing from the kitchen as he tried to find something to cook. He was part way through his sixth form when the doorbell went. There was a momentary silence. Kuai paused mid-move, trying to work out whether it would annoy his brother more that he had stopped, or more that he might be seen practising martial arts.

He heard his brother open the door and crept to the bedroom doorway to peer out.

"Jinhai! Sorry for calling round unannounced."

From what Kuai could see, the man didn't look sorry at all. He was leaning on the door frame as though he required it for skeletal infrastructure. Kuai couldn't see his eyes because there were shiny black glasses on them. He was wearing a loose mockery of Chinese traditional dress, all outrageously embroidered with leaping tigers, and a cool western style silk shirt underneath. A cigarette hung out of his mouth. Kuai was instantly fascinated in a horrified kind of way.

"No problem at all," Bi-Han said awkwardly.

Then Kuai realised too late that the mirror glasses were turned directly at him. The cigarette man pulled them down his nose so that he could look over them.

"Well, hello there, little man. I don't think we've been introduced."

Kuai hid behind the doorway. He heard the man laugh. He cringed. Bi-Han's body language as the man had spoken had been so defensive that Kuai instantly knew he had made an error. He could hear the special tone Bi-Han always put on to hide genuine fear and anxiety.

"Come out, Tao."

Kuai peered out cautiously, then moved in one darting movement to stand behind his brother. Up close he could see a cohort of equally well-draped colleagues that the cigarette man had brought with him. They were piled up behind him and leant on various pieces of street furniture.

"My little brother," Bi-Han offered.

The smoking man pulled a long puff on his cigarette, then stumped it out on the door frame and flicked away the stub. He wiped his hand on his smart tiger robe and offered it to Kuai. Kuai was momentarily at a loss what to do with the hand, before he remembered the custom. He shook it, but was mortified that he might have offended and harmed Bi-Han's chances in the oversight, so bowed low at the same time. The smoking man laughed again. His laugh made Kuai anxious.

"You can call me Uncle Nat, ok? I'm a friend of your brother." He grinned.

Kuai stared at him. No one had ever claimed to be Bi-Han's friend before.

Uncle Nat disentangled his hand and wiped it on his shirt again,

"Well, Jinhai, we were going to ask you if you'd join us for a burger at Chen's, but we'd be happy to extend the invitation to the young man as well."

"That won't be necessary." Said Bi-Han, in his predictable over-protective brother voice.

"I insist." Said Uncle Nat, in a tone that made it absolutely clear there was no room for discussion or dissent.

Kuai found himself sitting in a car that was so big in the middle that there was enough space for the seats to face each other. The windows were blacked out so that no one could look in and the night looked even darker. The they zoomed down the street as car blared out loud music in English sung and spoken so fast over a pounding beat that Kuai couldn't understand any of it. He watched out the window, excited by the change in pace and finally relaxed that he could do something new with his brother nearby to fix any difficulty that came up. Bi-Han sat ridged, silent, and uncommunicative even toward his so-called friends. The leather seats squeaked as Kuai shifted on them. They all smelt strange and new and special. He got on his knees to look out the window as bright buildings flew by in a blur of light. Everything looked very different through the dark window. He sat back round and kicked his legs and wondered what kind of a thing a burger might be.

* * *

 **Author Note:** In which Kuai gets his wish to stay with big brother, and big brother starts to regret this whole mission.


	11. Wolves at the Door

The burger was so big that Kuai couldn't open his mouth wide enough to take a bite. He was trying not to show that too many new things were happening at once, but he had never been to a shop where you go to eat food before, and he had never eaten meat before, and he had certainly never eaten a burger, or tasted sauces like this, or eaten tiny thin fried potatoes all in a little bag, or a drink with bubbles that went up his nose. He tried to keep his face serious but his eyes were bright as he looked up at the strange men who had bought him all these treats. Bi-Han sat silently next to him, his own burger barely touched.

There were seven of them squeezed around a greasy circular table. Other than Kuai, and Bi-Han, and Nat, there were four men. One had bleached spiky hair and a silk red dragon shirt that Kuai though looked very smart, he was called Teddy and he was quiet and didn't like gherkins. He left them in broken rings around the edge of his plate. There was Royce, his hair was dyed too, but a bright auburn red. It was long and pulled back into a pony tail. Royce had a necklace of spikes tattooed to his neck and wore enormous sunglasses that he clacked off and set on the table when his burger arrived. Royce talked all the time, even when he had burger in his mouth. He argued a lot with a man called Raymond whose neat fringe fell into his eyes. Raymond liked American music which he thought was superior to bands Royce liked. The last man also had shiny glasses, but unlike Royce and Nat, he kept them on, and wore a high collared navy winter coat and a woollen hat. Nat joked that this last man had spent a long time much further south working for his father, and now found Hong Kong autumns too cold. Kuai never caught his name, and he found something about the man's aura frightening.

"How's your burger, Tao?" Nat cut through Royce and Raymond's argument about whether grunge expressed more about the human condition than Korean pop music.

Kuai nodded excessively, chewing quickly and swallowing to answer,

"Really good, thank you very much, sir."

"Hey, hey- it's Uncle Nat, remember?"

Kuai nodded quickly again,

"Yes, Uncle Nat. Thank you very much, I've never had anything like it before!"

Nat smiled and popped a chip in his mouth,

"How are you enjoying Hong Kong?"

"Good! There are lots of things here I'm not used to. And in a city I get to meet lots of people. And I have to learn lots of languages, but those things are quite fun as well." Kuai set down his burger carefully so that it didn't fall apart. He desperately wanted to have another bite, but could tell from his brother's body language that these were all going to be important questions to get right.

"What's your favourite subject at school, Tao?"

Kuai thought for a moment, then said a little shyly,

"Literature class..."

Raymond broke in,

"Look at this, a cultured kid, not like Royce here. Hey, Royce, name me one band from America. One band."

"The Beatles."

"The Beatles were British, _idiot._ Even your mother would know that."

" _Uuuh?_ " Raymond and Royce went silent as Nat glared at them. "I was _trying_ to talk to Tao." Raymond murmured an apology and something in disbelief under his breath about The Beatles. Nat looked back at Kuai, "So, Tao, can you fight as well as your brother?"

Kuai had to think very fast. Bi-Han had told him he'd killed a man. That must have been in front of these people.

"I can't do _anything_ as good as my brother." He looked up at Bi-Han. His brother had always told him the best deceptions were mostly truth. "I studied a little martial arts, but he was very senior in our school back home."

"Was he now." There was quiet at the table. All eyes were on Bi-Han, and Kuai could feel there was some kind of inspection going on. He wished he could say something like Jia could. She always managed to deflect the conversation in a more lighthearted way. Hadn't she said something recently about-

"You know that Jackie Chan movie where he catches all the pots like this, one, two- and three even with his foot? My brother could do that _and_ eat a burger at the same time."

Royce, Raymond, and Teddy broke down into laughter at this, and even Nat grinned at the image. Kuai silently thanked Jia in his head and vowed that if he ever got round to watching a film, his first one would be which ever one he'd just discussed.

Everyone was all smiles at Kuai after that. Raymond fetched him a pot of ketchup and asked him if he'd ever seen _Rush Hour_. Kuai replied that he'd only seen it in the centre of Hong Kong and that made everyone laugh even more, even though Kuai didn't know why. He smiled happily and ate his burger, struggling to stop everything spilling out whichever end he was biting down on.

Bi-Han sorted a finger distastefully through the chips on his plate.

"Not a fan of fast food, Jinhai?"

Nat was watching him carefully while the others made jokes with Kuai.

"Not my idea of fast food." Kuai had held up well in close inspection, but Bi-Han was distinctly aware that his brother did not understand the real reason he was here.

"Ah. You prefer your food more traditional. Like your martial arts."

Bi-Han fixed Nat with a look,

"That going to be a problem?"

"Not at all. But now I'm wondering what you were doing pouring drinks at a bar with a skill set like yours."

"Doing what anyone who comes from the poor countryside does when they get to a city. Surviving."

Nat swirled a glass of coca cola with a straw and sipped it noisily. There was laughter as Kuai's burger fell apart and he hastily tried to reconstruct it while looking sheepish.

"It always just been you and your kid brother?"

"Just the two of us. I raised him."

"You must be close."

Bi-Han shifted, unable to stop his discomfort from showing. Nat smiled, but it was empty of kindness. He sipped his cola again.

"It's nothing personal, Jinhai. To trust a man, you need to control him. To control a man, you need to know his weaknesses."

Bi-Han said nothing. He picked up a chip and ate it. He spoke quietly,

"He is very dear to me."

"Good." Nat sat back, he finally looked relaxed. Something predatory inside Bi-Han grinned at the sight. He'd sold this mission to the Grandmaster as weakness for weakness. The reality was that nineteen was far too young even for a Lin Kuei to be sent after the top members of a Triad clan. But being young might mean he was overlooked, and a blood brother he genuinely cared for was one less social deception to pull off, ever the weak point of the Lin Kuei. Not to mention the glory that came of completing one of the most difficult missions ever requested of the clan. That and the thrill. His life in the Lin Kuei was a tight rope walked between curbing his boredoms, frustrations, and hatreds, and keeping his guard up and pride down so as to shield Kuai Liang from the worst the Temple could do. He was constantly caged by the Temple, and constantly caged himself for the sake of a brother who might suffer if he let his real frustrations unleash. He needed the thrill and danger of missions like this. He needed to be let loose on the world. The Grandmaster at least understood some of that balance, and often overlooked the unnecessarily high death counts his missions racked up.

This time, that meant putting Kuai in danger. When he'd first formulated this plan, that hadn't seemed like too great a sacrifice. He had had reservations: he was, after all, proposing to bring his little brother along essentially so that others could have leverage over himself. But he had been confident in his own ability to care for Kuai, and certainly didn't trust the Temple to do any better. There was also truth in the explanations he'd given Kuai – he would serve well as cover, as a point of deflection, and education outside the Temple would do him good. Did it make him such a bad person that he was also using him as bait? Plans had a strange way of never quite capturing reality. He had considered everything but the emotions he might feel when this moment finally arrived – Kuai Liang next to him, people who knew where they lived, people who were prepared to hold Bi-Han accountable for his actions over the threat of Kuai's life. No part of this felt like a good idea any more. He controlled a shiver that ran through him.

But there was that beautiful picture he had sold all this for: Nat's shoulders sloped without stiffness, and his fake smile dropped into a quieter, casual, low key enjoyment of his friends' humour. He was no longer a giant personality of bravado but another human being. And human beings were so weak. Bi-Han could move through them like grasses in a wild meadow, selecting stems to pluck and crush. Tight organisations were hard to get through, but in the end they were all built of humans. Stray wisps of grass who with the right approach would sway and bend, revealing their superstructures beyond. Even the mightiest could be snatched with ease if one just had a good entry.

Bi-Han blinked. His eyes fixed on the man in a high coat and woollen hat. From what he had gathered today and last night, this was Benjamin. While Tobias had been Nat's tool of intimidation, Benjamin was the no nonsense one who underhand went and gutted people so that they'd lose half their intestines before they realised they'd been stabbed. Much more Bi-Han's style. Bi-Han had no intention of seeking to usurp him though. Slight indicators in Nat's behaviour and body language suggested that Benjamin's presence here wasn't entirely desired. Bi-Han was fairly sure he'd been assigned to Nat from higher up. As yet, he was unsure if that was a demotion for Benjamin, or a sign of displeasure or weakness in Nat's operations. Either way, it was interesting.

Kuai hiccuped loudly next to him. Bi-Han turned unimpressed eyes on him. Kuai gingerly pushed his fizzy drink away from him, but that didn't stop him hiccuping again. He put his fingers on his lips and looked apologetically at Bi-Han. Raymond and Royce were in stitches watching him. Teddy took pity and passed him a cup of water.

"The bubbles went up my nose." Kuai said miserably after he surfaced from the water glass.

"Got to drink it slowly." Teddy passed him a napkin as well.

Kuai looked up at him,

"Thank- _hic-_ you. How does your hair stay so sp- _hic_ -spikey?"

Teddy stared at him, while the other two held their sides,

"I gel it?" Teddy folded his arms and looked out the window where the streets were mostly a blur of lights but his own reflection was bright and clear.

"Check the gel's still perfect, Teddy."

"As if you don't get up and straighten yours, Ray."

"What?! This is natural! I don't straighten anything!"

Kuai was lost again, and hiccuped quietly whilst feeling around in his paper bag for any remaining chips. When he came up empty he stealthily slipped his hand under Bi-Han's arm and towards his. He looked up and saw his brother looking down at him, unamused at the antic. Bi-Han shifted a hand and brushed the chips towards Kuai. Kuai looked abashed but ate the chips anyway.

Nat leaned back when all the food was done.

"So, Jinhai. Burgers aren't your thing, perhaps I can show you the best street food in town? Can't let my new strong man go hungry."

Bi-Han tilted his head. It was the same reserved but respectful gesture Kuai noticed he gave to the Grandmaster. To Kuai, it had always looked like it said: _I respect your authority – for now._

"Thank you. But I should take Tao home, he has school tomorrow."

"I can get someone else to drop him home." Nat sounded lazy, but not even Kuai missed the sudden flinch Bi-Han gave. Kuai had never seen him caught off guard like this in a mission before. He suddenly felt vulnerable.

"N-no, that's fine." Bi-Han stammered, "I mean I'm not that hungry, I'm happy to take my brother home myself-"

Nat waved him down and laughed at how quickly Bi-Han had become flustered.

"Not to worry, Jinhai. I'll leave your precious brother in your care. We can swing by and pick you up a takeaway, then you can be on your way. Oh, you'll be needing this in future." Nat slid a navy block about an inch thick over the table. Bi-Han stopped it with a finger and Kuai leaned over to look at it. It had raised silver buttons filled with numbers and characters.

"Is that a telephone?" Kuai asked.

"The future, little man. A mobile phone."

Kuai put his fingers on the phone to see if it really had no wire. Bi-Han moved it away from him and he jerked his head at Kuai's ketchupy fingers. Kuai tucked them under the table, ashamed at their mess.

"I don't know how to use this." Bi-Han sat bluntly to Nat.

"Baby steps. For now, just press the green button if it rings."

Bi-Han turned it over in his hands and nodded. He pocketed the thing as they all stood up. Kuai stayed very close to Bi-Han's side. All the men were nodding and joking as they rifled visibly through notes to pay the bill. Kuai looked up at his brother. He looked anxious, in that special Bi-Han way that to other people looked empty and emotionless. Kuai kept in his shadow, unsure what was wrong, but very aware that he did not feel safe.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Its 2005 back in the day when you could stealth text under the table and the joints in your thumb seized up from overuse. I bet the Lin Kuei were a bit behind on the times before Sektor started updating them from the inside out no pun intended but it was.


	12. A Blade For Two Masters

Kuai did not remember putting himself to bed the night before. He awoke yawning and stretching, and was surprised to see warm light already coming in high through the window. He leapt up in a sudden panic. Bi-Han was sitting reading a newspaper with a mug in his hand. He looked over it at Kuai. Kuai stopped. There was something strange about the sight. Bi-Han didn't look like he was trying to fit in, he looked like he belonged. There was no audience for his customary cold frown and no particular person telling him to be somewhere or do something or act in some way. He looked at ease. Kuai did not think he had ever truly seen him at ease before.

"Going to stand there gawking all day?"

Kuai blinked. He glanced at the kitchen window. A netting drape obscured the landscape, but the sun was definitely high in the sky.

"Have I missed school?"

"It's Saturday." Bi-Han sipped from his cup and looked back at his newspaper. It smelt like coffee. Coffee wasn't allowed at the Lin Kuei Temple, but Kuai was getting used to the smell since it filled the kitchen nearly every morning now.

"You didn't wake me to practice my forms."

"You looked tired."

Kuai's eyes became round and his cheeks glowed at his brother's uncharacteristic lenience. Bi-Han looked up as if on instinct,

"Tired, and like a small bloated seal who's stuffed its face on burgers."

"Bi-Han!" Kuai's fists curled into balls and he glared at his brother. Bi-Han ignored him. Kuai put out a hand and sent a jet of cold flurrying towards the coffee cup. Bi-Han gave a cry of dismay, and stood up abruptly.

"Kuai Liang, you little bastard!"

Kuai gave a wicked grin and darted back into the bedroom. He heard his brother swear as he spilt cold coffee everywhere.

When he peered back round the corner his brother was dabbing the table with a cloth. The newspaper lay open, fallen on the floor. Kuai's heart sunk. The tabloid double spread was filled with red pen markings and spaces where photographs had been cut out. At least Bi-Han had looked normal from a distance.

"You're working already?"

"Makes one of us."

Kuai sighed and looked down. Bi-Han picked up his newspaper and folded it so that it's highlighted sections and notes were hidden from view. He turned back to Kuai,

"Let's train together this morning."

Kuai put his lip out and folded his arms.

"I don't want to train with you. You can just push me over with one hand. I want to train with Tomas."

"Tomas turns to smoke whenever he's losing. I'm much more fun."

"You never lose! How are you any fun at all!?"

Bi-Han grinned. Kuai didn't find that funny.

"Anyway, are you going to tell me what all that was about yesterday."

Bi-Han stiffened,

"All what was."

"Those men coming in here and taking us out for burgers. Who are they and why did they-" He had been going to say _upset you_ , but thought better of it.

"No questions about the mission."

"What about that man who kept his glasses on? I never heard his name."

Bi-Han sat back down and opened the paper,

"There's a question." There was a pause. Then he beckoned Kuai over, indicating the chair and his side. Kuai ran over and dragged the chair up, leaning eagerly over Bi-Han's arm to look at the newspaper.

"What do you make of this?" Bi-Han tapped the page. There was a mugshot of a cold, stony face man with raggedy black hair and dead eyes holding up a card. Kuai instinctively pulled a face. "Mm." Bi-Han agreed, "Looks like a pleasant chap. Albert Chen. Bailed the equivalent of nearly ninety thousand yuan renminbi out of a Singapore prison."

"That means someone wants him a lot, right?"

"Right. Quite a distinctive look this guy's got. He'd have a hard time not getting recognised."

Kuai looked at his brother, not quite following what he was meant to be seeing here. Bi-Han sighed. He plucked two red grapes out of the fruit bowl and set them over the man's eyes.

"Oh! Like the man with glasses yesterday! You don't think..."

"I don't know. It was hard to get a good look at him. Unlikely he'd use the same name either. But here in the article it says that before he went to Singapore five years ago, Albert Chen worked in Hong Kong as an accountant for a number of high flying companies."

Kuai frowned,

"What's so special about that?"

"Nothing," Bi-Han looked up, "But he was imprisoned in Singapore on charges of fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy to smuggle illegal substances over the border, and four counts of grievous bodily harm. Know any accountants like that?"

"I don't know any accountants."

"If you want to be smart you can go back to your room."

"Sorry." Kuai looked up at Bi-Han, "I really like helping you and I like when you talk to me like a grown-up..."

"Right. Start acting like one then." Bi-Han bent back over the paper.

Kuai's shoulders sank. He looked down. Bi-Han turned a page. The sun was bright. It came in through the window gentle and mellow, like it never did back at the Temple. He looked at Bi-Han. His eyes were sharp as they flicked over the columns of text. A faint light stubble was on his chin and his close cropped functional hair was longer than Kuai remembered seeing it in a while. He wondered if there were other things about his brother that might grow if he spent more time away from the clan.

Kuai's eyes rested on the coffee cup he had turned cold. He jumped down from the table and picked up the cup. He put the cup in the microwave. He had worked out that if you hit all the buttons repeatedly a light came on and the contents heated up. He couldn't ever work out how to put a timer on, but he was getting good at guessing when things might be ready. He watched the coffee cup turn round and round. He judged it ready and set the steaming cup by Bi-Han's hand, then went to sit back up next to him. His brother nodded slightly in recognition.

"Are you going to kill the man in glasses?"

Bi-Han shook his head,

"No. He might be my way in. If he's got ties to higher up, getting in with him might be my ticket to the stars."

"I'd rather you killed him."

Bi-Han's eyebrows shot up and he turned to Kuai,

"Not what you usually ask of me."

"This man frightens me. Please be careful, Bi-Han."

Bi-Han stretched and put his hands behind his head. He grinned.

"I'm always careful."

Kuai's eyes were serious. Bi-Han rolled his eyes and gave a sigh.

"Also, Bi-Han. Next time you're away for the evening, is it ok if I go to a friend's for tea?"

"Nope. You can come home and study your form."

Kuai glared at him,

"I'll write the address down. I memorised the phone number so you can call when you get worried."

"I never get worried."

"This is the address. But I know you're not good with street names so I looked it up – it's north east from here, so if you turn north of the main road, it's the tower block estate on the edge of town up that way."

"That's good for when I never need to find it, because you're not going."

Kuai gave Bi-Han a look.

Bi-Han turned a page of his paper and picked up his red pen,

"I don't plan on leaving you alone again for so long."

"But your new 'friends' don't seem to mind making you uncomfortable. So you might end up being away again even when you don't want to be. My friend is kind and not a threat. She also has food in her house, not like here. If I'm not here when you get back ever, that's where I might be, ok?"

"Ok! Will you stop bugging me. Some of us actually have to make reports to the Grandmaster."

Kuai gave a silent sigh. He got down and went to clear some of the bedding away from the bedroom to make some practice space. He turned back before he got to the doorway,

"You have to give a report to the Grandmaster?"

"He likes to know we're not dead. The Lin Kuei have invested a lot time and resources in us. Always keep an eye on prized assets."

Bi-Han always sounded bitter when he spoke about the Grandmaster.

"Isn't it dangerous to contact the Lin Kuei? You might be being watched..."

"I happen to be good at being unseen, Kuai Liang. It's a forte of mine. Unlike pretending to be a citizen who makes cocktails, eats burgers, and sticks around to see what happens after they've murdered someone." He twiddled the pen in his fingers, betraying a slight anxiety that Kuai noticed immediately, "There's a payphone up on one of the mountain roads that I'll call from tonight. Hopefully the clan won't want updating for a few weeks after that. They know the volatile nature of undercover work."

It was true that he was good at remaining unseen, he thought as he stood in amidst a deep thicket of rhododendrons at quarter to midnight. But that was all no use if the pay phone stood under a bright glaring street lamp.

There was a thin sliver of a moon and a few slithers of brushed dark cloud about. He could work with that. But electric yellow light falling straight on him as he called from a lonely hilltop payphone was as good a beacon as one could light in a city of nearly seven-and-a-half million people. He glanced to his left. A large forgettable graveyard reared ugly and plain beside him. He found it disconcerting that people were buried here outside the city with only a rock to mark their body. Every Lin Kuei body found it's way back to the Temple, lest even in death they reveal secrets of their clan. A shrine was kept to their forbears as though they had been blood. They were, after all, brothers in blood. When they died they came home and lay in the midst of the temple they lived and died for. Their spirits were said to look on through old stones and ancient wood. They were the silent unseen spectators at every fight and meal. Guardians who reminded new generations of the old ways. Bi-Han couldn't imagine a society where you tossed the bones of kin into an out-of-town garden to be kept by a stranger. He wasn't one who thought much about spirits or what happened after death. But he knew loyalty and he knew blood, and this cemetery looked like neither. It did however look empty, and practically speaking that was much more useful. He picked up a rock from the roadside and tested its weight in his hand. He hurled it at the street light. Glass splintered and shattered in the night air. Yellow light guttered and flickered, then sizzled and died.

Blackness. Something else he knew very well.

He moved at one with the shadows, letting the darkness swallow him. He found his path to the phone by memory alone and picked up the receiver. He dialled a number and waited. The phone rang three times before it was picked up. Bi-Han tapped with a fingernail on the receiver. A pause. A receiving rhythm was returned.

"We are more stealthful than the night."

"Or at least some of us are. Others still need a little more practise."

"Return the codecall, Sub-Zero, or I'm not patching you through."

Bi-Han sighed,

"And more deadly than the dawn."

He waited while the clan members on call transferred the line to a more senior handler. There was a quiet autumn wind on the hillside. The gravestones were blackest black against the shrouded purple-moved sky that spread beyond. A startle of stars attempted to cluster in the night above, but the glare and flare of the city shone too bright. It was strange not to be able to see the stars. Except for stormy days, clouds, or thick mists, the stars always stood above the Temple. He knew them as a map that would always lead him back to his so-called home.

"Sub-Zero, report."

Bi-Han's eyes lidded. He recognised that voice.

"What can I say. It's two weeks in. I'm on form? Only one body dropped? I'm on the rung to greatness while you're still skulking about jealously in my shadow?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"F-fucking shit! _Grandmaster?_ I thought this was Sektor! S-sorry, I- I sincerely apologise-"

"I hope you afford my heir the respect he is due as your future master, Sub-Zero."

"Yes, of course, Grandmaster. S-sorry, I-"

"You claim to be on form. Can I assume you have infiltrated the Jade Fist Pact?"

"Yes, Grandmaster, I'm in with some low level drug runners attached to them, with a lead on how to move on up. I really am sorry, Grandmaster-"

"That will do, Sub-Zero. You're insult and insubordination are not presently the concern of this conversation."

Bi-Han closed his eyes, he could already feel this coming back to bite him. The Grandmaster continued,

"I have taken the time out of my schedule to hear your report. Given what has already transpired, you better make it worth my while."

"Y-yes, of course. The plan so far has gone as I intended it to. Nearly two weeks in employment at one of the ten company outlets frequented by the JFP that I drew up. I made my entry through the desired faction. I hadn't planned on killing anyone so early, but it was in a capacity as a civilian, Grandmaster, not satisfying my own-… It also served to place me in debt to the boss here."

"And Kuai Liang?"

"They know of him and already indicated they would hold him as leverage over me to ensure my loyalty. They as good as trust me, and in record time."

"I meant is Kuai Liang well."

"Oh. Yes, Grandmaster. I enrolled him in a school to avoid suspicion."

"I don't want young Lin Kuei members indoctrinated without outsider propaganda, Sub-Zero."

"He still trains with me every day," Bi-Han put in hurriedly, "The school is just a cover. I'll see that he still knows his place, Grandmaster."

"Like his brother?"

Bi-Han swallowed and bit his lip. The Grandmaster let the silence drag on painfully. Bi-Han shivered even though a cryomancer feels no cold.

"Anything more to add, Sub-Zero?"

Bi-Han held his breath steady then spoke when he could do so evenly,

"May I request an information check. The name Benjamin Ng. In connection with the Yeung family. I need to know how far back records of him go, whether there is any historic mention of him. I suspect he may have worked high up in the Jade Fist Pact for years from the way he is spoken of. But if I am right there will be no record of him. I believe he may have recently changed his name."

"Very well. I shall have Sektor pull our mission records and detailed reports."

Bi-Han went quiet.

"I'll hear your report via him in future. Unless you object to that?"

"No, Grandmaster, no objection." Bi-Han said quickly.

"Good. Hunt well, Sub-Zero. The reputation of the clan is on your shoulders."

The call hung up. A long monotone dial sounded through the dead speaker. Bi-Han looked at the phone. He gingerly hooked it back up. He winced and looked up at the knife-thin smile of the moon. _That could have gone better_.

* * *

 **Author note:** Ops. A tale of Bi-Han: taking on the Triads - no problem; managing not to be an arrogant smartass for 2 mins - catastrophic failure.

Thanks for the continued reviews! Shout out to the guest shipping some young Kuai budding school romance - I'm sure Jia and Kuai would both be grossed out by the idea of romance, but glad you're enjoying their interactions!


	13. Corporate Takeover

He felt over-dressed. Nathaniel Yeung had insisted that anyone working for him had to look the part. They had fitted Bi-Han out with a full tangzhuang suit, black with gold fittings. Black he could work with, but the gold turned him from incognito to focal point, something he found disconcerting given a history in stealth training. They'd combed all his hair back too, and spent longer thinking about his appearance than Bi-Han was sure he ever had altogether in his entire life. The effect must have been convincing, because the man before him looked terrified before he'd even lifted a finger.

They were in a large warehouse. Nathaniel was sitting cross-legged on a wooden crate. Bi-Han stood on his left and Teddy on his right. The others in their posse were spread covering their flanks. Bi-Han was in a place of prime importance. Perhaps not incidentally also a place where Nathaniel could watch his every move. The warehouse was stocked with leaning towers of crates, casting the impression of business frozen in practice. Anxious aproned workers hovered in the shadows. They looked towards their foreman. Their foreman was wringing his hands before Nathaniel and moving with an agitated to and fro.

"We just need a little time, Mr Yeung, sir."

"Let's try again." Nathaniel pulled a small silver case out of his jacket. He cracked it open and selected a cigarette. He clacked the box shut and held the cigarette out to Teddy, who flicked a lighter for him. Nathaniel took a long draw and blew smoke lazily out through his nose. "You've moved all my product, but you can't seem to locate my money?"

"It's like I said, Mr Yeung – it goes out to sell, the return takes a little time to come back."

"I know that, Lam, which is why I always come the last Friday of the month having given you two weeks since shipment. What part of our regular business arrangement is not up to standard here, because here I am, fine and regular, not an unreasonable man, and here are you, not giving me my money."

"Yes, Mr Yeung, but the time we-"

"I don't think you're listening to me, Mr Lam. Do you not take me seriously? Jinhai, show him I'm serious."

Bi-Han blinked. He flicked a knife out and was about to cut Mr Lam's throat open when he caught himself. _Alive. Alive. Think like a civilian. What do they want. What do they want from me?_

"Jinhai?" Nathaniel was looking at him. So was Teddy. Bi-Han gave a curt nod, blinking quickly to hide his confusion. Mr Lam raised his hands in placation.

"Mr Yeung, that's not necessary, I know you're-" Mr Lam stopped and stared at his hand. Bi-Han's knife had gone in one side of Mr Lam's hand and it's end came out the other. It took Mr Lam a moment to register and another to scream. He dropped to his knees, howling in pain, gripping his wrist with his other hand as he stared with tearing eyes at his palm. Bi-Han stepped forward and drew the blade out, watching emotionlessly as blood gushed from the gaping gash and ran in rivulets down the creases of Mr Lam's palm. Bi-Han tapped the steel under Mr Lam's chin. The man abruptly stopped howling and stared up at him. There was silent terror in his eyes. Bi-Han tilted his head fractionally. He could feel his heart pounding and blood rushing loud in his ears. He so rarely had to hold back in moments like this that he could feel his fingers trembling with the effort. He kept his composure still. He moved the blade, turning Mr Lam's chin so that he looked at Nathaniel.

"Do you see now, Mr Lam?" Nathaniel jumped down off the crates. Bi-Han remained immobile, dagger at the man's throat. "I like you. And I like taking care of the business here. But the product you're selling and the money your moving is mine. You've sold the product, so I'm going to ask you one last time, what have you done with my money?"

Bi-Han's eyes flicked up and scoured the shadows. Something was not right. He looked toward Benjamin. The secretive man was still buttoned up to his chin in a coat, but had a revolver out and had moved into the cover of a steel girder. Like Bi-Han, he was listening intently. Nathaniel was still talking when Bi-Han saw a shadow from far over on the right thicken into a human. He leapt and bowled into Nathaniel, knocking him to the ground and flinging his knife. A scream lit the air and a gun went off, cracking a blind array of bullets at the ceiling and shattering a hanging light. Splintering glass, flickering lightbulbs, and a mad dance of swinging light and bullet fire flashes ignited the warehouse. Everywhere workers started running for cover, as assailants stepped out from behind towers picking shots in the half dark. Bi-Han dragged Nathaniel behind the crate he had been sitting on. Nathaniel looked at him. Bi-Han could see shock lining his face. He looked at Mr Lam. Mr Lam was trying to crawl into cover but was hampered by his bleeding hand that left red slime trails of blood splashed and smeared across the floor. He reached out whimpering to Nathaniel with his good hand. The hand took a bullet straight through. Mr Lam had one moment to be puzzled at the perfectly spherical hole in his palm before the next bullet went through his head. He dropped with a dull thud to the floor and his eyes instantly greyed.

" _Shit._ " Whispered Nathaniel. He pulled a handgun out from his belt.

Bi-Han could feel his blood pounding again. His eyes picked out the lines of bullet fire, mentally marking their origins and pinpointing each enemy. Then his mind traversed the warehouse, noting structures, the arrangement of towers, cranes, and lifts. His hands cooled as ice instinctively begun to gather under his skin.

"Stay here with me, ok, Jinhai? They're armed to the teeth."

Bi-Han shook his head awake as if from a reverie.

"I can take them."

"What the fuck, Jinhai, there's loads of them. Stay here with me and cover my back."

Bi-Han sunk into cold, denied fury. He could feel adrenaline in his veins making him twitch with excitement.

The crack and ring of exchanged gunfire smattered out across the warehouse. A cry ran shrill that made Nathaniel flinch.

"Ray!?" Nathaniel called out in agitation, "Ray, are you ok!?" He glanced at Bi-Han, "That sounded like Ray..."

Bi-Han stared coldly at him. Nathaniel was giving away their position by shouting.

"Nat! Nat, I'm down!" Caterwauled Raymond, "Bullet to the leg and – oh – _shit!"_

"Ray? _Ray?!"_ Nat made to peer round the crates.

Bi-Han stopped him with a hand on his shoulder,

"You want to die?"

Nat shrugged him off. And poked his head above cover. Bi-Han saw his eyes widen. He frowned, then cautiously raised his head to see what Nat saw.

A man in a leather jacket was striding down a large aisle from a hanger door. In one hand was a sub-machine gun, in the other, half being dragged, was Raymond. He was bleeding from the thigh and looked pale.

The man with the machine gun let off a burst of fire towards the ceiling. Bi-Han clapped his hands over his ears at the splitting sound.

"Okay, Nat!" The man with the gun shouted, "I know you're out there! Ms Grace sent me! She said to keep it friendly!"

Nat sat back quickly. He took a deep breath. Bi-Han could see the sweat on his brow. He blinked and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He put it away and breathed out slowly,

"Ask Ray how friendly this all feels right now!" Nat called from behind the crate.

The man in the leather jacket let out a laugh.

"Call off the dogs and we can talk, Nat!"

"You're the one who ambushed us!" Nathaniel yelled back, not putting his head out again.

"I know you've got Albert after your old man sprung him, Nat. Call him off or I put a few slugs in your mate's head."

"Okay, okay!" Nat raised two hands.

"Albert?" Bi-Han asked Nat. Nat ignored him.

"Okay guys, stand down, stand down. We can chat nicely with Gracie's people."

Nat stood slowly, placing his handgun down on the crate. The man in the leather jacket set his down carefully on a steel shelf. Everywhere from out of the shadows gang members stepped gingerly forward laying arms down reluctantly. Bi-Han stayed hidden. Nat stared at him,

"Come on, Jinhai. No secrets when a truce is called."

Bi-Han stared back at him like he was mad. He stood very slowly, like a deer rising from the meadow stalks to stare down the barrel of the hunter.

"Okay." Nat put up placating hands as the leather jacket man let Ray slip to the floor and hug his leg to him. "Now how about you go home and tell my god-damn sister to stay off my turf."

"Why don't you tell your god-damn sister yourself." A short woman with straight chocolate hair and luminous green round glasses strode from out of the aisles and planted her hands on her hips.

Nat looked suddenly uncertain of himself. Bi-Han could see the waver in his posture quickly covered up by familiar bravado. Nat's gestures became big and broad and his voice wide and laughing and not at all sincere.

"Gracie! What's all this about? I didn't know you were on this side of the island!"

"Its simple, Nat." The young woman stalked up to her brother. She stood a head shorter, but somehow still looked bigger in the exchange. "I'm taking over this distribution centre."

"But… uncle gave it to me..." Nat said in a tone of hurt injustice, "And you took the west docks last month..."

"And I'm taking this now, little brother. Let's see it as me doing you a favour. We all know you'd rather be having fun than running business. Now, where's Albert?" The young woman summoned someone from behind her. A middle-aged woman in a purple anorak stepped up. "Syun, cover him." She pointed to Benjamin in his winter coat with revolver still in hand. Nat opened his mouth to speak, but both the anorak woman and his sister walked right past him and up to Benjamin. The woman in the purple anorak held a gun pointed at Benjamin despite the ceasefire. Grace stopped next to her and narrowed her eyes at Benjamin. "I understand you're baby sitting. But I can make much better use of your time."

Benjamin said nothing.

"A good wage and someone who can make use of your skills?"

Benjamin still said nothing.

"So loyal." The young woman exclaimed and leaned in closer to inspect Benjamin, "I hope you know you're here because it's precisely the most useless and invisible place for you to be. To keep you away from where you could be useful." Then a little more quietly, so that Bi-Han had to inch closer to hear the exchange, "And who you could be useful too..."

Nat was looking down at the bleeding body of the foreman.

"Did you have to kill Mr Lam? He didn't even do anything wrong… I'm guessing you took all the money..."

"Mmhmm." The young woman left off staring at Benjamin and walked back over, casting one forgetful glance at the dead foreman. "He was terrible at stalling. His successor will know what I'm looking for."

Nat sighed and nudged Mr Lam's hand away from him with a foot.

"And who's this sweetie, picking up stray kids now, Nat?" The young woman turned to Bi-Han. Bi-Han froze as he saw himself reflected in her green glasses. He kept forgetting that he wasn't invisible to these encounters he was watching.

"Yeah," Nat said dispiritedly. "Listen, Grace, can't we talk about this? Uncle Ken will be so mad, you know all this stuff is his..."

"I guess you'll have to apologise for losing it." Grace had already turned her back and was indicating tasks to various different people with sharp finger points.

"Grace..." Nat followed quickly behind her, "This isn't even your area, you don't even move this kind of product, even if you take over this one centre, you won't be able to-"

"Nathaniel." Grace turned and looked at him over the top of her glasses, "Stop trying to act like you know what you're talking about. It's cute, but now real business is going to start here. I know I ruined your power trip, but you've still got some other businesses to fawn over. And look, I know a guy on the far side of the island who owes me a favour. He's got a show room of Bentleys. I'll give you the address, and you can ride over there and tell him you're Grace's little brother and you want some new wheels, ok?" She pulled out a notepad and jotted down an address. She offered it to him.

Nathaniel's face went a puce colour of indignation.

"I'm taking the warehouse, Nat. Whether you take the consolation prize is up to you."

Nathaniel snatched the paper from her and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

"Now I have to call the fucking hospital." He said darkly, looking over at Ray.

"Take him to the private clinic. It'll make everything easier. Let's get a move on shall we?" She looked at him impatiently.

Bi-Han helped Teddy lift Raymond and they dragged him unceremoniously to the car. Teddy drove them whilst Royce held Raymond upright and spoke to him in gentle soothing reassurances. Bi-Han tied a tourniquet above Raymond's bullet wound while Nat sat fuming and off to one side, forehead leant against the window and swearing intermittently under his breath. Benjamin sat silently next to Nat.

It had started to rain again. Bi-Han sat back on the floor of the car once he was done with the tourniquet, listening to the growl of the engine, the squeal of wet tires on tarmac, and the wince of the car window wipers. He watched Nat pull the piece of paper his sister had given him out of his pocket. Nat shook his head and swore softly,

"You believe this?" He held the paper between two fingers and held it up to Benjamin, "The cheek."

Benjamin didn't reply. Bi-Han saw Nat fold the paper up and store it safely back in his pocket, then he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"Phone ahead, Benjamin. Let the clinic know we're on our way with a gunshot wound." The car filled with cigarette smoke and Nat had to wind the window down a little just to let out some of the smoke. The rain came in in distant splurts, but no one complained. Benjamin took out a mobile phone and pressed its keys. He talked lowly into the receiver.

"What'll you say to your Uncle Ken?" Royce asked Nat.

"Fuck if I know." Nat took another draw of his smoke then tapped it on the car window to let the ash fly out behind them.

"Who's Uncle Ken?" Bi-Han spoke up for the first time since the gunfire. Nathaniel continued smoking. The others stayed quiet. Nathaniel turned to him slowly after a few moments.

"My uncle." He gave Bi-Han an unhelpful smile, then looked out the window, "I work for him. The businesses are sort of his… I maintain them and get a cut. It's more complicated than that but that's the rough idea. Or at least it would be if Grace didn't keep-" He punched the window hard. His knuckles crumped solidly against the thick glass. He sucked his breath in and scratched his nose and looked away.

The man Bi-Han knew as Benjamin spoke. His voice was grating and deep, like old bloodstained leather,

"She moves without directive and without honour. Speak above her and she will have to give back what she has taken."

"That's not how this works, Ben, god how long were you in Singapore, you don't know us at all. Grace plays these games. If I tell father, she'll be winning somehow."

"That is not a game but your pride, Master Nathaniel."

Nat glared at Ben. He turned and looked out the window again.

The clinic came up in a screech of white and pale light. Teddy pulled the door open and Royce dragged Raymond out. Nat swept through the carpark rain in with arms open and a hissing cigarette in his mouth.

"Service, please! What do we pay you for here?!"

Three paramedics in whites rolled a trolley out and helped Raymond onto it. Royce checked he was seated stably, but Raymond was reluctant to release the strong grip he had on his friend's shoulder.

"You're ok, you'll be out in no time." Royce gave him a weak grin.

"Don't leave. It's my fucking thigh, don't leave ok?!"

"I'll be right there in the waiting room," Royce pointed through the glass window to a sleek minimalist waiting room with grey covered sofas and a wall mounted television.

"Alright..." Raymond looked a little grey in the face, "Tune that to the music channel and listen to some American rock, I'm telling you it'll blow your mind."

"Yellow Submarine," Royce winked, and the paramedics wheeled an indignant, cursing Raymond away. Once he was out of sight, Nat clapped Royce on the shoulder,

"Come on, we're heading."

Royce's face fell and he became tense,

"I want to stay, you go on..."

Nat gestured and his face went irritable,

"I'm already a man down and warehouse down, and you want to bail?"

"You've got Teddy, Ben, and…" He gestured vaguely at Bi-Han, "Call me if there's trouble, I just want to stay for the surgery, we're all family, right? Family stick with their own."

Nat let his breath out through his teeth. He jerked his head in approval. Royce saluted lazily but ran indoors with some urgency. Nat spat his cigarette stub out and placed a hand on Bi-Han's shoulder.

"Everyone disappointing me but you, huh, Jinhai?" Bi-Han said nothing. Nat nodded, "I appreciate what you did back there in the warehouse for me. You've got good instincts and quick reflexes. Dragging me out the line of fire like that. I made a good choice choosing you. We're gonna be good friends, Jinhai, I can tell." He slapped Bi-Han on the back and spun his finger in the air, indicating Teddy should start up the engine. Bi-Han followed them back through the parking lot in the pouring rain. He caught sight of his reflection in a black puddle and gave it a cold smile.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Bi-Han successfully shows an ounce of restraint and only stabs one to two people and gets called a sweetie. It's a very special day for him. Mark it in your calendars, it's unlikely to happen again.


	14. Promises and Secrets

Kuai stepped back slowly, feet sliding across the wood in a subtle shift of weight. He turned the angle of his feet, planted a step and spun, turning his body weight into the movement. Heavy hand down, upper cut rising high, weight shift, weight shift, down, whole body churning momentum in step, step, step- and there'd be another one to follow but the bedroom was much smaller than the sparring rooms back home. He did a little shuffle back and finished the line of the form, his punch lightly grazing the far wall.

He sighed. Bi-Han hadn't come home last night. He didn't feel energised to do anything, least of all martial arts forms. He sat down in the middle of the floor and held out his palm before him. He concentrated, breathing out slowly. Cold ran through his veins and a white cold mist shrouded his fingers. His fingertips cased in a thin veil of glittering ice. He concentrated harder. In his palm grew a snowflake. He tilted his head as he urged it to grow. It fractalled and spread in his palm, its spindly arms growing tiny arms of their own in an unending pattern of frosted beauty. The heave of a giant engine and rush of expelling breaks heralded the arrival of the school bus. He leapt up and the ice shattered on the floor. He pulled on odd socks and slipped his shoes on without the laces done up. He grabbed his satchel and ran out the front door, jumping the puddles from last night so his laces didn't get wet.

By fifth period he was tired and sad and lonely. He hadn't eaten much since the day before and was feeling homesick. He just wanted to get back on the bus and have done with everything. He was in an art class. Art classes only happened once a week. Kuai usually enjoyed them. He liked listening to the different things the teacher taught them and trying them out for himself. Today they were painting self portraits. Kuai's page was blank. He stared coldly at the small hand mirror propped up in front of him. His eyes were dark ringed from waiting up late and getting up early to practice his form. The face in the mirror looked angry and irritable and a lot like Bi-Han. He flipped the mirror down and looked at his blank page. It was blank like the Lin Kuei Temple in winter. He picked up his brush and dipped it in the grey paint.

Forty minutes later the teacher came round and paused at Kuai's shoulder. A grey severe rearing fortress stood stark in a white mountain landscape, with dark brooding skies above.

"Tao, that's very nice… but, we're painting ourselves today," The teacher said kindly.

"I _have_ painted myself." Kuai stuck his brush defiantly back in the water jar. He stuffed the wet painting in his satchel and pulled his coat on.

"Tao, it's another twenty minutes before school ends."

Kuai stalked out the classroom. Behind him, Jia wiped paint coloured hands on her apron and pulled it off. She grabbed her things and ran after Kuai. She caught up with him and punched his arm lightly.

"Not that way. Mr Martin stands at the reception area making sure no one sneaks out early. Follow me."

Kuai found himself walking along the sea front with Jia, throwing stones at the slate grey sea.

"You ever had burgers before?"

"Yep." Kuai pulled back a hand and let launch. His stone sailed through the air and hit the back of a wave with a loud plop.

"Well, it's burgers tonight at mine. And you're coming."

Kuai threw another stone.

"Just warning you though," Jia sounded hesitant. That made Kuai look up, "I've kind of got a lot of siblings. And they're all _really_ annoying. I've got an older brother, he's ok but loves the rules too much. And two older sisters," She counted on her fingers, "And three younger sisters. Two are twins. And the little one is really small and really loud."

"That is a lot," Kuai admitted.

"Yep." Jia yawned and stretched.

Kuai's mood dissipated a bit in curiosity,

"I haven't met any people younger than me before. _Many_ people, I mean." He corrected quickly, in case that was strange. "What's it like having little sisters? Do they look up to you?"

"I mean I guess. But mostly they're just loud and annoying or clingy and want things. Like, 'Jia, draw me a horse', or 'Jia, I want to play with Mia's toy, she won't give it to me'. Ugh."

Kuai's cheeks warmed. He liked the sound of having little siblings who looked up to you.

"Come on, come meet them if you don't believe me. But I'm warning you, they are the _most_ annoying."

Kuai had seen the tower blocks from a distance, but he had never quite appreciated how big they were. The roads were cut into the hillsides so as to steer around them, and screen of tall high trees hid the true extent of the grey concrete jungle behind them. The towers looked less like houses or even like the silvery skyscrapers from the city centre. Kuai thought they looked like grey versions of the plastic multicoloured counting units in the maths room. The ones with small holes that you could keep stacking and stacking and stacking on one another until they were a high tall wall of tiny little holes in a flat monotonous surface. He hesitated when he saw them. The main road did not bend into this part of town and the towers were sheltered from view beyond by the rear screen of every other building on the main street. Kuai felt like he was walking into a different world.

"Pretty cool, huh? And to think Nianzu's dad wants to pull it down. Come on, I'll show you where I live." She ran down a number of streets then leaned back shielding her eyes from the little sun that made it between the towers. She squinted and pointed,

"See that red cloth hanging off that balcony?"

Kuai squinted with her, tilting his head all the way back, he shook his head.

"Hmm. It is hard to see. Ok, well, do you see that big white sheet there? One, two, three, four, five, six up from the ground floor?"

Kuai squinted again and his neck hurt. He nodded.

"Okay, count ten up from that. That's the red blob of the sheet. And the red blob is two along from our window. Mrs Lang always dries her red tablecloth out the window. My brother's always telling her not to because it's so big he says it'll catch the wind and fly away! But I like it, I think it makes our floor look like a pirate ship!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious. Kuai found himself captivated as they rode the lift up to the sixteenth floor and she told him her favourite pirate stories and how she turned them into games.

"The problem with playing games though," She explained as they got off and entered a narrow concrete corridor, one side open to the elements with only a steel railing between them and the long drop, "...is _I'm_ the only one who plays them right. My little sisters always want to join in and they never do it properly, then _I_ get told off when they get upset at me going off and doing my own thing! Maybe you'll play games better than them." She turned around. Kuai had stopped in the lift door, eyes fixed on the railings. Far below, cars moved the size of Kuai's fingernail. The world was like a map spread out for one of Bi-Han's missions, so distant and miniscule compared to real life.

Jia laughed,

"Hahah, yeah it is a long way. Don't worry though, you get used to it. Just got to watch the baby close to the edge."

Jia's flat was bigger than Kuai's but it was hard to tell, because it was filled with so many more things. Kuai didn't think he'd ever seen so many things all in one place before. There were so many things that he couldn't focus on any one thing and say what Jia's house had in it. He stepped over something on the floor, a toy maybe, and had to move gingerly through the debris of little coloured bricks on the floor like a Lin Kuei stealth test. There was a television on playing cartoons and a large clock on the wall and a mirror and a some paintings and a leaning coat stand fat and bulging with coats of all shapes and sizes and colours, and underneath, like a votive offering, a jumbled stack of many sized shoes and wellington boots. He turned as he walked, as if stepping into a palace and wonderstruck for where to look.

Jia slung her satchel down onto what might have been a sofa, save it was hidden under other things that had been slung there at previous times.

"Is Mama in?" She called. "Hey! Someone answer me!"

"Stop shouting in the house, Jia." A young man put his head round the door. He had smart combed hair and wore and apron and held a metal spoon in one hand. "Oh," He smiled, a little disarmed at seeing Kuai, "You didn't say you were bringing a guest, Jia."

"This is Tao. Can he stay for tea?"

The young man nodded, but Kuai could see he was a little put out. Kuai glanced at the door and wondered if it was too late to leave. The young man returned to his cooking and immediately the sound of sizzling and hissing from a small side room returned. Kuai hugged his arms around him, feeling out of place in the clutter. Back home there was a bamboo mat held together with tough thread. The mat could role up into a long cylinder about two inches wide. You rolled it out or you rolled it away. That was the only thing in a Lin Kuei room. Clothes were placed fresh outside the door every day by servants. A blanket could be used in autumn and winter. And outdoor shoes that were kept near the door to the yard. Shoes were in the sizes small or large. They slipped on or off, and were replaced by the door when not in use. Everything had its place, its time, its purpose. Jia's house felt a lot like Hong Kong in miniature. Everywhere there were things even where they perhaps weren't needed. And if you needed somewhere to put something, you stacked it on something older and hoped it didn't fall over.

"There." The young man stepped out of the steaming kitchen and into the main room, he balanced his spoon over one shoulder and smiled at Kuai, "Had to stop the garlic from burning. So, Tao, what's your secret?" Kuai's insides went cold at the question. "How'd you manage to get on with Jia?"

The young man laughed as he dodged Jia throwing a pencil at him. Kuai's heartbeat returned to normal and he felt silly. He looked at Jia playing with her brother and smiled shyly.

"Li-heng Ru." The young man introduced himself to Kuai.

"Pleased to meet you Mr Li-heng," Kuai put his fist and palm together and bowed in greeting.

The young man smiled again,

"Just Ru is fine. I'm Jia's brother and these..." He gestured to an array of faces that seemed to have popped out of the clutter and various doorways, "Are her sisters!"

Kuai blushed at the attention. Two faces looked very young and two others looked older than him. One held a bundle of blankets in her arms that squirmed and gurgled. Kuai's mouth opened and he took a step towards the bundle. His nervousness faded as he watched the blanket twitch. He edged closer and peered down. A small round face with big eyes and pudgy lips stopped squirming and stared at him. The bundle reached up a stumpy hand and placed it on his nose. Kuai blinked and pulled his head back. He placed his finger next to the hand and marvelled at how tiny it looked. The hand grabbed his finger and shook it, turning to look at its sister and gurgling. Kuai stared. All he could think of was that the age gap couldn't have been so different when Bi-Han looked down for the first time at his new brother. He looked up at the girl holding the baby.

"That's a _really_ small person."

Jia's siblings all laughed and Kuai smiled shyly again.

"Come on, Tao, you don't want to look at dumb babies, lets go play." Kuai did want to look at dumb babies, but Jia grabbed his arm and led him to a room filled with triple decker bunk-beds. Kuai's eyes went wide again.

"Beds on beds on beds!"

"Those are pirate ships." Jia corrected. "Here I'll show you." She swung agilely up to the top bunk and tugged the slip of a pillow and hung it off the bed corner, "That's the flag."

Kuai nodded appreciatively. Jia stared at him impatiently.

"Tao, you're still standing in the sea. Either you have to be a crocodile or you need to get on a ship. I'm Madame Ching. You can be some pirate whose almost as good, if you can think of one."

Kuai had never played any games that had make-believe in them before. Not like this anyway. His brother had told him to pretend things before. Like the first time he had been beaten by teachers for failing a lesson. Bi-Han had told him to pretend there wasn't any pain, and to put on a face that hides things that hurt. Or whenever he was afraid, Bi-Han had told him to pretend there was no fear, that way he at least wouldn't get in trouble for it. If he thought back a long way, and closed his eyes very tight, he could remember being in a small dark closet with the door cracked open only ajar enough to show a thin line of light. There had been footsteps and shouting and crying and the sound of things breaking. And Bi-Han's arms were around him, but not strong and steady like he always remembered, but much smaller. And he could remember Bi-Han telling him this was a game, it was all a game, none of it was real, to stay very quiet, to play this hiding game and stay very quiet so that the outside noises did not come close to their haven. He shook his head. That last memory could not have been accurate. Bi-Han never played games.

Ru called them through for dinner, but as he did, the door clattered open and in bustled a woman in a purple anorak. She couldn't quite hang her shiny plastic coat up on the coat stand, but managed to balance it on the top of the bursting pile. She kicked off her shoes and ran her hands through her dishevelled hair. There were hard lines in her face and a sharpness to her eyes. She didn't even seem to notice there was an extra face among her children as she came through to the kitchen.

"Ru, you've made dinner. Good, thanks. I meant to get back in time, but-"

"It's alright, Mama, don't worry about it."

"Right." She seemed distracted and like only her body had arrived home and perhaps her head was still somewhere else. "I mean, I know I promised I'd cook this evening."

"You didn't, that was last week."

"Right, yes. That's it. Well, I appreciate it, Ru." She disappeared into a cupboard momentarily. Jia trailed after her,

"Mama, come and meet my friend!"

"Not right now, Jia, I have to get ready,"

"But he's staying for dinner, that's ok, right?"

"Mm, of course. You been good, Jia? No more calls from school?"

"Uuh..." Jia glanced towards the kitchen where Ru was dishing dinner. She smiled inoffensively and sidled out of sight, letting the question drift unanswered into the general din of the apartment.

They ate burgers for dinner with fried mushrooms and spring onions and sweet chilli sauce. They didn't eat at a big western table like at school or at Kuai's new home, or at a low row of tables like back at the Temple. They ate every man (or woman, seeing as there were a lot more sisters than brothers) for themselves all arranged in the living room snug amidst a pile of clothes or toys, with a view of the television screen. The screen showed cartoons, with words in Cantonese that went too fast for Kuai to catch, but he liked watching the characters and the way the pictures moved. Most of all he liked eating his burger and watching the screen in amongst all these other little people his age. Most of them were a bit shy like him and just got on doing their own thing, but appreciating each other's company. He liked that.

Jia's mother sat perched on the edge of a chair filled with miscellaneous things. She had a transient bird-like quality to her, and the angle of her shoulder suggested she wasn't watching the television. Her eyes were distant as she thought something over. Kuai thought they reminded him of Bi-Han's eyes, when he stopped listening and started turning over mission details in his head. Jia's mother finished her burger quickly and washed up her plate in the kitchen. She put one pan in to soak then went to the door and slipped her shoes on.

"Again?" Said Ru.

Jia's mother pulled her purple waterproof off the hanger,

"I don't have the luxury of hanging about all day. I shouldn't be back too late."

"Really."

"Ru, I don't have time for this again. I'll see you all later. See you later darlings." She smiled at the room and buttoned up her jacket. She opened the door and was about to go when she noticed Kuai, she paused in confusion, but already had one foot out the door. Kuai could see her mentally shrug and leave.

After dinner Jia took him to one side. She had that look on her face like she was about to confess something. Kuai's heart sunk, Jia confessing things usually meant having to run from trouble, get into a fight, or lie to a teacher.

"Um," She twisted her fingers together, a bit like Kuai did under one of Bi-Han's interrogation stares. "You know when Nianzu said that rubbish stuff about my mother..."

Kuai's face evened and became gentle. He nodded slowly.

"Well it's not true!" Jia's face became indignant, "My mother isn't a criminal!"

Kuai nodded quickly,

"Ok, I believe you. Who believes Nianzu about anything anyway."

"No, but I mean..." She looked frustrated, "Can you keep a secret, Tao?"

 _If only she knew,_ Kuai thought, but he only nodded vigorously in response. Jia took a deep breath and frowned, she glanced over her shoulder and beckoned Kuai to follow her quietly. Kuai took the mission deadly seriously, spreading his toes and his weight to move silently, leaning into the shadows and keeping his movement slow and regular to avoid detection. Jia hopped across the corridor from the girls' room over to a bedroom with only one bed. From the colour of the walls and the boring patterns on the curtains, Kuai suspected this was an adult's room. Jia beckoned him quickly away from the door and round the far side of a double bed spread with a plain linen sheet. She got down on her tummy and shimmied under the bed. Her finger stuck out from under it and summoned Kuai. Kuai joined her. Under the bed was a place of fluff and forgotten toys and old creased leather suitcases.

"Look," Jia said. She unstrapped a black plastic watch from her wrist and pressed a button on the side that made it glow faint green. She pointed the green light at the skirting board. Kuai frowned. A black square line was cut into the wood there. Jia got her nail in the crack and prised it open. She shone her torch into the hole. Kuai drew in his breath. Within was a handgun. Jia nudged the gun out of the way with a finger and reached for something shiny and gold. "My mother only pretends to be a criminal," She said and opened her hand to show Kuai a badge, "She's still in the police, but she has to pretend for her work to be a criminal. Everyone talks shit about her. But I know she's still good and everyone else can go to hell!"

Kuai blinked at her angry words and took the police badge in his hands, turning it over in his palm. He gave the badge back reverently to Jia, and she replaced it in the hideaway and set back the panel. Jia's face was solemn and serious. Before she rolled out from under the bed, Kuai said to her,

"I think your mother's a badass."

Jia's smile returned after that and she was warm and open. But Kuai couldn't shake a feeling of guilt that came from keeping the secrets of other's and not sharing one's own.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I'm gonna own up right now. Between Kuai misjudging how much space for his form he needs and Jia wondering why her siblings suck at pirate games- this is a very autobiographical chapter :p


	15. First Strike

**** _Gore Warning_ **  
**

* * *

Bi-Han leaned back. He was either becoming more at ease in his cover, or more careless. There was a thin line between the two where becoming more like yourself made everything both safer and more dangerous. Either way he was struggling to maintain interest in Nathaniel's plan. He rocked back on his chair, leaning his head on the wooden wall behind.

"Oh? You got a problem with my plans, Jinhai?"

They were sitting around a circular table in dim light. An ash tray and a half dozen Thai beers were on the table. Teddy and Benjamin were also present. Teddy was subdued and still seemed in shock over the warehouse raid two nights ago. Benjamin was as silent and elusive as ever.

"It just seems too half-measured. She came in guns firing ready to take what she wanted by force. You're talking about scaring some low level people beneath her in retaliation. Not exactly high stakes."

"I don't _exactly_ have the man-power, Jinhai." Nat said coldly, "Incase you hadn't noticed."

"Then stop playing her games. How much do you want this? Is this just about making a show of not going quietly, or do you actually want to dismantle her power?"

"Oh, suddenly the barman is an expert on Triad politics?"

"Not politics, no." Bi-Han sighed irritably, "But I know enough. _T_ _he clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him._ " Bi-Han folded his hands behind his head, " _Emerge from the void like a bolt from the blue. Strike at vulnerable points, shun places that are defended. Attack in unexpected quarters._ "

"What is that, fucking Sun Tzu?"

"Mmhmm. Is Hong Kong in 2005 so special that it has surpassed the wisdom of universal warfare?"

"Have I hired the fucking Shaolin? If I wanted-"

"Not Shaolin. They're two-faced, hypocritical, supposedly ancient but with no real respect for tradition, and their code of conduct is hopelessly idealistic and unrealistic."

"God, you really are from the mainland, you sound like you've walked out of a government propaganda martial arts movie. What are you suggesting, I murder my own sister?!"

"No…" Bi-Han rocked forward and his chair clacked onto the wood floor, "Just those close to her. Maybe they can have unfortunate accidents, so as not to raise suspicion… How can she operate smoothly without efficient people close to her?"

"No, no, no." Nat fluttered his hand in the air. He stubbed out his cigarette on the ash tray and played with a half empty beer bottle restlessly. "Benjamin… what do you think? Should I go to Uncle Ken? I can't really go to him with nothing..."

Benjamin, sat silently. He reached beyond the collar of his winter coat to stroke his chin thoughtfully,

"The boy speaks true." He jerked his head Bi-Han's way, "You must decide the nature of your escalation. Do you keep your father's peace and accept your losses, or risk his ire and go after not only what you've lost but more there besides. Grace will not stop, Nathaniel. She is a wolf. Once wolves smell weakness they always come back for more."

"But killing those close to her?! It's insanity to challenge her like that!"

"So don't mount it as a challenge," Bi-Han put in slyly, "A series of unfortunate accidents. And then when she's getting suspicious… how could she suspect her dear younger brother… whom she so woefully underestimates."

Nat's eyes lightened,

"She'd think it was my uncle… She's always worried he's cutting her out the loop."

Bi-Han raised his hands, point made.

"I don't know, Nat… Maybe we should wait for Ray to get out of the clinic before we try something this big." Teddy rubbed the back of his neck slowly when he finally spoke.

Bi-Han shot him down coldly,

"It's not meant to be big. That's point of the operation. It's unnoticeable. Before we're even back at full strength."

"I just think Ray and Royce would want to be around for this decision is all – it seems like an important new direction, you know what I mean?"

"What is this? A democracy? I'm new to all this," He locked dark sea grey eyes with Teddy, "So please, enlighten me."

Teddy went quiet.

"We're no democracy," Nat said sharply, "And what's the harm in doing research anyway. A little bit of homework on who's closest to Grace – where they live, what operations they head, what they are to her… Get some schedules in place… Not as if we have to strike immediately."

They finished up their beers and pushed through the door from the back room into the bar they'd been haunting. Benjamin slowed his pace in the doorway after Teddy and Nat had gone through and only Bi-Han was behind. He sat a hand on the door frame, stopping Bi-Han.

"Quite a depth of knowledge you're hiding there, kid."

"Hiding?" Bi-Han was smooth, cool, and easy, "I'm not the one in the shadowy hat and high collar coat, old man." He ducked under Benjamin's arm and caught up with the others.

After the business of the meeting was done, next on the list was an out-of-the-way enterprise. Nathaniel was collecting his dues from his least prominent sellers first by way of not escalating any conflict with his sister. Bi-Han thought that was a mistake on Nat's part, but didn't bother saying so: as long as there was chaos, the violence served him. Nothing else mattered.

They were riding in a new Bentley convertible that was bronze gold with brown leather seats. The roof was down and in Raymond's honour there was a blaring trail of American rock music speeding them through the city. Teddy took his foot on and off the accelerator as they waited at the lights, making the car jump and frolic like a finicky pony. Bi-Han lay his head back and looked straight up at the night sky far about them and the neon towers. He sighed. This mission wasn't all bad.

"Jinhai," Nat was next to him, "You were pretty imaginative back at the warehouse the other day. Knife through the hand. Can't say I've had anyone pull that when I've asked for a scare tactic."

Bi-Han hesitated, unsure if he'd revealed too much in that display.

"Hey," Nat clapped him on the shoulder, "Don't look so shook, it was a good strong show. So you got a violent streak to you: we're all on a journey of self-discovery and you're in the right line of work now, my friend."

Bi-Han raised his eyebrows, probably for reasons different to Nat thought he did. He leant back again and watched the sky. The car roared away from the traffic lights and sped the streets to bright blurs again. Bi-Han realised an important moment was leaving him,

"What uh… is the code of conduct surrounding uh…"

"Intimidation?" Nat supplied. Bi-Han nodded. "Well you can't make good business off dead suppliers, dead dealers, or dead clients. Who would there be to rip off?"

From the look on Nat's face that was meant to be amusing, but Bi-Han didn't catch the joke, because the Lin Kuei did perfectly well making good business off dead people.

"Anyway," Nat's face straightened as his humour went over Bi-Han's head, "Just keep things under wraps, nothing too extreme unless I indicate it's necessary."

"So no killing. That's all?"

"Mmhmm." Nat was fishing around in his jacket pocket. He clacked open his silver case and selected a cigarette. He flicked out a lighter and lit it. Bi-Han jerked his head back away from the fire. Nat laughed as he held the flame to his cigarette.

The nightclub was a shadowy blend of purple light and low blue haze. A swill of smoke puffed from near the stage and set the dancefloor a hallowed coven of mist and movement. Bi-Han watched fascinated as slow bodies slinked to a throbbing bass so low he could feel it grinding in his bones. His senses were immediately thrown off guard by the strange light, deep darkness, the thick smell of sweat and alcohol, and the constant beat of the music. He squinted and followed Nat. Nat had an escort of creamy dressed willowy ladies who walked wavily, the crowds parting before their clopping heels. They showed Nat, Bi-Han, Teddy, and Benjamin up a small flight of steps to a raised stand bordered by beefy black-clad men in glasses. Seated in a low decadent throne of fleece and faux fur was a middle aged man with a belly, a stained dressing gown, and a cigar hanging out one side of his mouth.

"Nat Yeung!" He said by way of greeting, and flopped a newspaper he'd had in hand down onto two lines of cocaine spread on foil wrapping on the table.

"Those my drugs?" Nat said casually as he joined the man on the curved sofa. The willowy escort had draped themselves over the man's shoulders. They looked unpeturbed by the question, although Bi-Han noticed the bodyguards bristling. Teddy made to sit next to Nat, but Nat put a hand on his arm, "Teddy, keep an eye on things with Ben, will you? Don't worry, Jinhai's got this."

Teddy moved a little stiffly past Bi-Han and took up a position that marked the guards. Nat beckoned to Bi-Han, who sat uncertainly next to him.

"This is Tommy Chow." Nat smiled at Bi-Han. Bi-Han read all of Nat's distaste for the man in that smile.

Tommy Chow was nuzzling his nose toward one of the willowy ladies at his side. The woman's body language to Bi-Han looked not unlike his own: a kind of reluctant pandering to a situation that arose out of employment necessity.

"Tommy," Said Nat with terse patience, "Spends a bit too much time looking at things. Like young girls and other people's product."

Tommy looked up slowly and a grin spread across his face equally slowly,

"What can I say, Nat, I likes what I see. And I run a good business!" He gestured around.

"Your club protection goes to my sister. How well you run her club is of no interest to me. How well you sell my drugs at her club is."

"Ah, Natty, what can I say, she took a little more this month, and said I can keep some of the drugs in recompense!"

"Grace… said you can keep my drugs as compensation for her taking more protection money?"

"That's right, but eh- no hard feelings, OK? One Yeung's the same as another, right? All money to Jade Fist Pact!"

Nat's lips pursed tight. Bi-Han could tell he hadn't been expecting his sister to have moved into turf of his as small and trite as this.

"Unfortunately for you, Tommy, one Yeung is not the same as another."

"Can't see that from over here, Nat. All looks the same to me. And besides," He retracted his arm from around a young lady, "If any Yeung looks different… Well let's just say I know which sibling could make a more _attractive_ offer..." He laughed and leaned back, throwing both arms around both women again and pulling them closer. "Oh, but damn if she'd just let me…." He left his sentence unfinished and sighed.

Nat was stiff and cold. Bi-Han could feel barely controlled hatred coming off him in waves. Excitement flared involuntarily though Bi-Han's veins.

"You'd do well to keep your eyes to yourself, Chow."

Tommy laughed again. It was a confident, full laugh.

"Look, Nat. I'm in my own club, with my own men, and your sister's people are only a block away. I pay well for their protection. If she says I can sample your coke… It's end of. You got a problem with that, you got a problem with her not me."

Benjamin had appeared at Nat's shoulder, he leant down and whispered in his boss's ear. Bi-Han caught the snatches of his gravelly voice.

"Careful, Nathaniel. This is not the first strike you planned for. Risking war with your sister over this will not further your cause. These people are a pittance. Not worth Yeung sweat to deal with."

Benjamin stepped back and took up position again. Bi-Han could see Nathaniel's eyelid twitching. His knuckles were white, quivering with anger. Bi-Han dared to inch closer to him. Very softly, he said,

"No killing, like you said… Just… let me have him."

Nat glanced into his cold blue eyes and saw something darker there. The very air around him seemed chill. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

Bi-Han sprang across the table, he dropped his weight onto the man, pinning his legs with his thighs and trapping the outstretched arms around the two women with his elbow. He froze icicles onto his thumbs and forced them straight through Tommy Chow's eyeballs. The man screamed. The two women screeched and vaulted the sofa. The bodyguards turned abruptly, one took Teddy's elbow straight to the nose, the other got Benjamin's palm strike to the throat and collapsed choking and gasping to his knees. Bi-Han's eyes dilated as he forced his thumbs into the man's face. The blood vessels burst under the pressure and spurted thick red oozed down the man's cheeks. He pressed until the jelly squelched under his thumbs. Bi-Han looked at his handiwork then sat back onto the table, swivelled himself over and deposited himself back in his seat.

"Now he keeps his eyes to himself." Bi-Han said softly to Nat.

Nat stared. Tommy Chow slapped his palms over his eyesockets, howling in agony. His cries went up like a siren and melded with uninterrupted melody into the throb of the booming music beyond. Bi-Han looked at Nat's immobile posture. The adrenaline started to die down and a sinking feeling that he might have overacted simmered within. He looked anxiously at Nat and said quietly,

"You said… no killing?"

Nat nodded abruptly and stood.

"That's for talking shit about my sister, Tommy. You can tell her that if she asks what happened."

Tommy just bawled and clutched his eyes.

Nat licked his lower lip and took Benjamin by the elbow,

"Get us out of here."

There was silence in the Bentley. It was louder than the music and the growling exhaust pipes.

"That was first strike, Nathaniel." Benjamin drove the Bentley at a more reasonable speed than Teddy had.

"Nah, it was for eyeing up Grace." Nathaniel sounded uncertain of himself.

"She will see it as revenge."

"Chow can still do his job, Ben! It's not like we kneecapped him!"

 _We._ Bi-Han sighed silently. So his actions were being owned, he was forgiven his display of violence then. He caught Teddy looking at him, the man glanced away quickly. Bi-Han had been expecting resentment in that look, but instead he noticed fear. He relaxed, these were dynamics he could handle.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Look he fits in fine now that he's not a cocktail waiter.

Thanks for all your support - its always a pleasure hearing from readers, so please do comment and let me know if you're enjoying this - it inspires me to keep going!


	16. Tactical Error

Kuai sat silently eating his plain rice with thin rough-hewn chopsticks. He was thinking about the gun under the bed in Jia's mother's room, and Nianzu saying he was coming for revenge, some unfinished mathematics homework in his bag that he daren't get out at the breakfast table, and whether the flats at Sek Pai Wan Estate really might be knocked down for some rich businessman.

"What are you thinking about, Kuai Liang." Bi-Han said from behind a newspaper.

"Nothing."

Bi-Han folded down the paper looked at him. His blue eyes went through him with precise incision. Kuai winced under their intensity, unsure what he had done this time to merit their inspection. Bi-Han reached a hand forward and held his chin. Kuai pulled away and Bi-Han's grip was suddenly tight and uncomfortable, holding his face in place.

"Bi-Han-! You're h-"

"Let me look at you." Kuai stilled. Bi-Han's eyes narrowed. "You're thin. You don't look well."

Kuai pushed his brother's hand away.

"Probably because I don't eat anything but plain rice most days!" Kuai said sullenly.

"Why not? I left you some of the funds on the counter."

"Because I don't know how to cook? And because the supermarket is two miles away and if I go after school I miss the bus home and it takes ages to walk!"

Bi-Han looked suddenly troubled and anxious. Kuai started. He hadn't meant to make his brother worried.

"I'll make sure to do better though," Kuai added. "It's not such a long walk, two miles is noth-"

"I brought you here because I was worried about what they might do to you when I was away, but I don't even know how to look after you. I've cared for you all my life but I don't even know how to feed you. You would have been better off at the Temple than with someone who can't even-"

"Bi-Han, Bi-Han!" Kuai jumped down from the table and hurried to his brother's side. Bi-Han had clenched one hand into a fist and it was slowly freezing the table top. His eyes were dark and fixed on the far wall.

"I want to stay with you, I don't want to go back there. I'll learn to look after myself better."

"I've been so wrapped up in this mission that I didn't even notice that you-"

"I'm fine!" Kuai took Bi-Han's hand in his, still a little cautious in case that was too forward, "Please, as long as I'm with you that's all I want, that's all I need."

"What you need is some fucking meat on your bones."

"Please don't be angry-"

"I'm angry with myself."

"I know. I know, but please-" Kuai looked up at him, squeezing his hand tighter and holding it to his chest.

"Let go."

Kuai let go immediately and hovered at his brother's side, unsure if he'd over stepped a line.

"I have neglected you. Don't speak." Kuai had opened his mouth to object, but he shut it again when Bi-Han said that. "It is just as much an important part of my mission that you keep up your training and remain in full health. If I do not, the Grandmaster will make known his displeasure to me. And you will have to work double as hard to regain what has been lost even whilst you try to recover your strength. It will not be well for either of us."

Kuai's heart sunk. Bi-Han's care always seemed to have a practical side to it. Just once, he wished he could hear his brother say his concern came from something more. Not that he didn't think his brother loved him. Just that… he sorely wished he could hear the words from his mouth.

Bi-Han mistook his melancholy for fear.

"Don't worry, I won't let that happen. I'll make sure I'm here at least in the early evenings to see that you eat probably and that your training is overseen."

It wasn't quite the words he wanted, but after the long nights spent alone in the apartment, it was good enough. He beamed at Bi-Han and felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

"Except this evening. I already promised I'd take care of something this evening." He turned a photograph over, toying with it between his fingers. A face, an address, and a semblance of a schedule. When Grace Yeung awoke tomorrow she would find some of her associates had met untimely fates.

Kuai's shoulders sunk all the way back down. Bi-Han was caught up in his own thoughts again, and did not even notice the abject disappointment in Kuai's expression. Kuai had schooled it away by the time his brother was paying attention again. He wondered if this was how things had started out for Jia, with her mother making promises that just fell a little short each time.

"Ok." Said Kuai, quietly.

"Will you be alright feeding yourself today?"

"Yes, Bi-Han."

"Promise?"

"I promise, Bi-Han."

Kuai forgot his despondency as soon as he got on the school bus. The bus driver was standing in the aisleway shouting for everyone to settle down. There was clamouring, and students standing on seats, and laughter. The bus driver clapped her hands three times and the noise dulled a little.

"Sit _down,_ please! I will not be driving on until you are all in your seats!" Children reluctantly slunk down from kneeling to sit slumped in their seats. Kuai walked cautiously down the aisle. He realised what the fuss was about when he got to his usual seat. Jia's hair was no longer in its regular pigtails. It was all cut off and spiky, like a small black bomb had gone off on her head. A boy on the other side of the aisle had a black eye. It didn't take Kuai long to put two and two together.

"Good, you're here, Tao. Right, we got to start plotting the next phase of our revenge."

"Revenge?"

"Against Nianzu." She sat back and pondered, holding her chin in her hand thoughtfully. She looked very different with short hair. Much scarier, Kuai thought, like her appearance had finally caught up with her personality. "We got to take it to a new scale of course. You're meant to be the brains, Tao, help me out here."

"Wasn't sitting on him and punching his nose enough?"

"That was before. This is now."

"Clearly." Said Kuai before he could stop himself. She gave him an impatient look. "But we're even, Jia, I don't see why we should just make trouble for the sake of-"

Jia squeezed his shoulder sharply and drew him close. She looked awkward and a little reluctant. She spoke in a harsh whisper,

"They jumped me yesterday when I was on my way home. There were four of them but I still managed to sock one in the stomach so hard I made him puke. They cut my hair off with a pair of scissors."

Kuai felt something rise up in him like a seething wave of anger. It startled him how sudden and total and immense it was. Jia saw his face and continued quickly.

"They didn't cut much," She said defensively. "But when I got home I cut it all short with a _knife_. Just to make a point. I made it shorter and more angry and did it more hardcore. Just to let them know. I'm not afraid of some snotty boys who have to follow a girl home in a pack and I can still takethem on my own!"

"Not on your own. You don't have to do it alone." Kuai breathed out slowly. His breath was a silvery mist. His eyes were frigid. "I'll make them pay, Jia."

"Good. Now, I was thinking we could take their school books and set them alight so that-"

"I'll break their arms. All of them."

Jia looked at him,

"We had a fight last time, Tao. We got to do one better this time."

"It will be better. I'll make sure of it."

"Tao, you're acting strange, come-" She put her hand on his shoulder but withdrew it quickly, "God, you're cold."

Kuai turned ice blue eyes to her,

"I'll break their arms and all their fingers."

Jia thought about this. She folded her arms and sucked on her lip. The bus stopped at some lights, then moved on. It stopped at two more sets of lights before Jia spoke again,

"No. We're gonna do one better than even broken fingers. I want to pull down Nianzu's dad's business empire. And you're gonna help me do it."

Bi-Han moved silently passed the tall red oak bookcases. Most of the books were in English with neat unread spines. Some of the shelves had no books on at all and were filled with useless things he could only assume were for decorative purposes. There were globular glass weights, and ceramic pots, small wooden trinkets, and photo frames. He paused to look at the photos. There was Nathaniel in a new car, Nathaniel holding a diploma certificate, Nathaniel with sunglasses skiing, Nathaniel with sunglasses on a yacht, Nathaniel with sunglasses riding an elephant, and… He picked up a small wooden frame. The photo had that late seventies, early eighties washed out colour to it. A small, serious looking boy was standing straight and still in the shadow of a severe man in a sharp suit with a scarlet silk tie. On the severe man's right was a slightly taller girl. She had a petulant stare and a slight swagger in the tilt of her shoulders.

Nathaniel meandered over to him,

"Hm. From the days when Grace was still taller than me."

"Is this your father?"

Nathaniel nodded. Bi-Han saw his body language change, he looked a little more uncomfortable, a little more stiff, a little more like the boy standing very obedient and silent in the old photograph. Bi-Han set the photo down and returned to the centre of the room. The apartment was big by Hong Kong standards, with a high panorama window view of the sea and an open plan to the kitchen and seating area. A low wooden table stood sparse in the centre, surrounded by low sofas. Nathaniel flopped down into one now.

"This thing tonight, you and Teddy can take care of it together."

Teddy opened the fridge and pulled out a four pack of beer by the plastic wrapping. He tugged one free and cracked it open.

"Together?" Bi-Han frowned at Nathaniel. "I can handle it alone."

"Don't be dumb, Jinhai. Together is safer. We always take two incase our _visitee_ isn't alone."

Bi-Han stared at him,

"So I'll wait til the target's alone before I strike, and do so silently so I don't attract attention."

"Jinhai, no offense, I can see you take easily to the life of crime, but Teddy's going to take the lead on this one – show you the ropes. You knock on the front door-"

"The front door?!"

"Yes, Jinhai, we're not fucking ninjas, we're not going to climb sixteen-stories up the side of a building and coming in the fucking window. So – you knock on the front door, and ask nicely when the last bill payment was made because you're here to turn the gas off-"

"Do I look like a gas worker?! There's no way this is going to work, it's an insane idea-"

"You didn't look much like a cocktail waiter but looks can be deceiving, now will you shut up or I'll make you sit in the car and chauffeur us around instead of causing the pain."

"I can't drive."

"God! This guy!" Nathaniel stood up and threw his hands in the air, "I swear you're the most insufferable-" He put his hand to his forehead and muttered something that sounded like _kids these days_.

"Ok. I'm listening." Bi-Han folded his arms sullenly and leaned on one of the red oak bookcases.

Nathaniel had a look of long suffering irritability on his face. The silhouette of Benjamin moved ghostlike by the large windows. The silent man was surveying the city below. Teddy, pulled a second beer out of the pack and closed the fridge with his foot.

"Want a beer, Nat?" He made to throw it.

"Don't fucking throw that at me it'll shake up inside and soak my best jacket." Nat straightened his shoulders and pulled the jacket to rid it of invisible creases. It was pure white with two gold dragons down either side with an inner lining of emerald green. Bi-Han thought it looked stupid. Like this idea of an assassination plan.

"So," Nat started anew with his best imitation of patience. As he did he walked over to get the beer from Teddy, "You pose as gas engineers – this is what you street folk never get – it's not just about taking out an enemy, you got to put the fear of god in them first. Its prestige, drama, mystique, an unspoken game – they work out who you are, you know who they are, and in that moment where you all pretend – those are the moment where a clan's name becomes legend. Can you get that, Jinhai. Can you see that? Not just another death but pride. A death with pride stamped on it."

Bi-Han was quiet. He nodded slowly. He could get that. It wasn't permitted by the Lin Kuei. All that mattered in a kill was efficiency. But he'd be lying if he said he'd never leant in and, as his victims slowly froze to death, whispered 'courtesy of the Lin Kuei'. To stand in the open and really let an enemy know who they faced – to see the terror in their eye as they realised fully who would send them to their death… He nodded again to Nat, a sly smile coming across his face. He could get that.

"But keep it quiet, you two. And Jinhai, none of that loud stuff – stabbing hands, putting people's eyes out. Just nice and quiet," He paused and laughed, "Like you did Tobias."

Teddy stiffened.

Bi-Han nodded again. He was good at quiet when required.

"And witnesses to a minimum please. Try catch her alone." Nathaniel sipped the beer then looked at it as if surprised it was in his hand, "It's too early for beer! Teddy, why are you drinking beer? Why am _I_ drinking beer? God, my nerves are a wreck, I can't believe Gracie's waging war on me. I'm going to take the Bentley down to the clinic and pick up Ray and Royce. Ben, can you brief Teddy and fucking ninja assassin over there, I don't want the local precinct involved, they're ours for turf wars – I don't even know who's side they're on for all this internal bullshit."

Nathaniel put his unfinished beer on the side and flicked his car keys off the hook. He gave a careless salute goodbye and the door swung shut behind him.

Kuai had been glaring across the chemistry lab at Nianzu all period.

"Hey!" Jia elbowed him.

Kuai shook his head. The gauze he had been holding above a bunsen burner was glowing white hot. He bit his lip and pulled it out the flame. He turned the burner flame from angry blue hot to large and yellow.

"Oops." The gauze was still white hot and its netting looked like it was ready to disintegrate. When no one was looking, he put his finger on it. There was a sharp hiss as his ice met the hot wire.

"Tao! Are you ok?!"

"Oh... yes." Kuai hid his unburned finger, "I was just checking to see if it was still hot..."

"Well, no shit it's hot! Are you alright, let me look at-"

"I'm fine, Jia. The real question is, what are we going to do about Nianzu. You haven't had a single good idea all day, so I'm still thinking I should punch him straight in his stupid face."

Jia sighed and tightened the clamp on their flask.

"I don't know ok. We got to plan this right, and it'll take time. You should come round to mine this evening so we can make plans."

Kuai nodded,

"Is it burgers?"

"Nope, noodles."

"Noodles in your flask, is that, Miss Li-heng?" Dr Ho the chemistry teacher was peering down looking at them through large safety goggles. She had her hands on her hips.

Jia nudged Kuai,

"I wish. It's only salt water in there anyway, might as well put my noodles in."

The teacher's eyes narrowed at Jia.

"These are dangerous experiments, Jia. Pay attention when you're doing them."

"It's boiling water. I literally boil water every day, Dr Ho. I don't see why I have to do it in class too."

"We're not just boiling water, Jia. If you'd set up the experiment properly, you'd be distilling your salty water – separating out salt and water."

Kuai thought about this as Jia rolled her eyes and looked back at the picture in the textbook she was meant to be replicating.

"Dr Ho, when you said salt and water-"

"No Mandarin in the classroom, Tao."

Kuai fell silent. He didn't know the English or even the Cantonese for the words he wanted to ask. He looked down and prodded his gauze instead. The teacher took pity on him and answered in Mandarin,

"Alright, just this once, what did you want to ask?"

Kuai's face lit up,

"Is the salty water in our flask like the sea?"

"A different composition of salt and water, but yes, in principle."

"So you could boil the sea and make fresh water?"

"Yes, Tao, but it would take a very long time. Even with a little bit in your flask, it takes much longer to boil than pure water because of the salts in it. Salts alter the property of water."

"Alter the property? So it takes longer to do things..." He looked dismayed, "What about freezing?"

"A lower temperature is required for freezing saltwater. One moment, Elizabeth's at risk of burning her eyebrows off."

The teacher slid across the polished wooden floor and snapped a gas tap off before putting her hands on her hips and looking severely down at an apologetic looking girl.

"The sea is harder to freeze..." Kuai murmured and swung his legs on his high stool.

"Wow, Tao." Jia looked at him, "A farmer _and_ a nerd. You're a very special friend."

She grinned and Kuai scowled at her.

"Why'd you want to know about freezing the sea anyway?" Said Jia as they sat on the bus home and watched Kuai's stop go by.

Kuai shrugged,

"Why do you want to know what'll happen in Super Sentai next week?"

"What?! Tao, that's not even vaguely a similar question! Super Sentai is clearly cool while the sea is not!"

"Would be if you froze it."

Jia opened and shut her mouth a few times indignantly before her face split into a grin.

"Hey, not bad for a farm boy. I'll admit that was pretty funny."

"Just don't ever tell my brother. He has no sense of humour when it comes to jokes like that."

Jia grinned as the bus turned to got through the back lanes,

"I've not met your brother. You met my boring brother, when can I meet yours?"

"Your brother's not boring! He can make burgers! My brother can only make burnt frozen onions."

Jia put her hand over her mouth, then burst out laughing,

" _Burnt frozen onions?_ "

"I'm not even joking, don't ask." Kuai sighed.

Jia suddenly frowned,

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"There was a sign back there… Let's get off, I want to look at it."

They called for the bus to stop and hopped off, school satchels swinging on their shoulders as they ran back down the road. Jia and Kuai skidded to a stop before a public notice board. In red characters across the top of a piece of paper was 'Notice of Relocation'. Jia pulled down the paper.

"It's Block Three. They're going to pull down Block Three. They say it's not safe. They're going to renovate it."

"Isn't that good? If it's not safe?"

"They renovated another estate and some of the residents still have to live in ours. We've lived in our estate all our lives. Two and a half thousand people live in Block Three." Jia bit her lip. It was the first time Kuai thought he had seen her worried. Her brow creased as she scan-read the notice, "Where will they go? How long do you think it takes to complete something like this? Years and years and years. This is my home! And after Block Three…. There are seven blocks, Tao. It could be over ten years until its done. Sixteen thousand people and only some politician's word that you'll ever be able to move back in. And what do these folk even mean 'renovate'. More like they want it to look prettier for rich folks who can see it from their fancy apartments."

"You're not Block 3 though, right?"

"No. But they'll come for us eventually, just you wait. They're been trying to do this for years and years. Nianzu's father has been pushing for this for as long as I remember. This means he's finally got his way. And what if people say they don't want to move? It's a private renovation, but I bet the moment people say no, suddenly the authorities will be there dragging people out. What about Mrs Lang? She lives on the same floor as me. She's eighty-one, what's she going to do waiting for a house that takes ten years to build? She'll probably dead is what."

They walked in silence back through the estate. The evenings were getting darker a little earlier. The streetlights lit up in pairs along the roads before them, and the towers like slumbering giants looked down with their thousand eyes. There was a quiet austerity to them. Kuai thought about what Jia said about sixteen thousand people living up there, looking down at him. He hunched his shoulders and followed quickly after her.

"Hello, Tao. Staying for dinner?" Ru put his head out the kitchen as they hung their coats up with difficulty on the swamp pile obscuring the coat hanger.

"Yes, please!" Said Kuai.

"You sound hungry. Your mother not feed you at home?"

"Tao lives with his brother." Jia put in on his behalf.

"Setting a Hong Kong trend, are we? It's noodles tonight, with mushrooms that Jia's about to cut."

"Ru, I don't want to cut mushrooms! My friend's here! We've got important business to do!"

"I don't mind helping." Kuai was interested in learning how to make something that wasn't soup anyway.

Jia gave him a bitter look of betrayal. Ru gave them small chopping boards and a knife each. Kuai immediately became aware of the weight of the blade in his hands. He could feel it easy in his grip, and his mind went to how it would swing, how fast he could stab, how the weight would spin if thrown. He put his finger to the edge – sharp – but needed to be shaper still to cut flesh with minimum resistance. He blinked quickly and shook his head. Ru set a bushel of pak choi leaves before him. Kuai swallowed as he looked back at the blade.

"There's a relocation notice for Block Three. They're going to make everyone move." Jia cut her mushrooms into neat lengths and looked up as she spoke to her brother.

"Nonsense, Jia. They've been threatening that for years, there's not enough housing available to relocate an estate this size."

"Well, they're gonna do it. For sure, I saw the notice with my own eyes. Residents got five months. There's a lot draw for where you end up, but I bet they'll make the deal sweeter if you up and leave nicely no trouble."

"You've got Mama's suspicious head on you, Jia. The government only wants to look out for us."

"The government, my foot! It's-"

"Don't spit on the vegetables. And watch the sizes you're cutting."

"It's Nianzu's father who owns the company doing the renovations. He'll make millions off all us having to go live in shit-holes."

"Jia Li-heng, that's enough language from you! Don't you know your sisters are listening! And what about your poor guest, I'm sure he doesn't want to here you cussing away about housing redevelopment!"

Kuai sort of liked hearing Jia cussing about housing redevelopment. It fascinated him that someone could have so much passion and feel so strongly about something so clearly out of her hands. He wondered if anyone in the Lin Kuei had convictions as strong as Jia.

They finished cutting vegetables and Jia beckoned Kuai to follow her. They slunk away before Ru could find any more tasks for them to do.

They sat on the top bunk in the children's room – the deck of the pirate ship – as it had been indelibly transformed in Kuai's mind.

"Have you thought of anything?" Kuai folded his legs and leaned back against a wall plastered with posters of cartoons, "I've never had to think about bringing down anything as big as a business before, I wouldn't know where to start."

"Maybe we could sneak around his house and see if we can find some incriminating clues!"

"Incriminating him of what? He's not doing a crime, Jia."

"He is!"

Kuai rolled his eyes and folded his arms,

"A 'crime against humanity' doesn't count as a real crime like what the police arrest you for."

"Well it should," Jia said sullenly. "Maybe we could sneak around anyway, you're good at sneaking!"

"You're not." Kuai said flatly.

She glowered at him,

"Well maybe you can go on your own special mission then."

Kuai's eyes lit up. His own mission. Like Bi-Han did. His very own secret mission. And a chance to prove he could do more than just be 'cover' for Bi-Han. He let out a long sigh.

"Maybe I could..."

There was a sound from the living room as the apartment door opened.

"It's Mama!" Jia vaulted the bed and peered round into the living room. Jia's mother was hanging up her purple anorak. Kuai followed Jia and watched with her. Jia's mother had tired eyes and lines in her face. She went into the kitchen and spoke to Ru as she leant exhausted against the counter.

"She's a fucking hero." Jia whispered to him. She said this in Cantonese and Kuai made a point of remembering it so that he could go home and show Tomas what colourful language he'd learned.

One of the twins was crying in the bedroom and Jia's mother turned tired eyes on Jia.

"Jia, can you go get your sister to be quiet, my head hurts awfully." She frowned when she saw Kuai next to her daughter, "Have we met, young man?"

Kuai bowed and pretended they hadn't,

"Pleased to meet you, Jia's mother. I'm Tao, I go to school with Jia."

She raised her eyebrows and gave him a nod in return,

"Li-heng Syun. So, Jia's been going to school. An improvement on last year." She selected an apple from a bowl on the counter and bit into it. Jia put her head round the corner from where she'd been trying to quiet her sisters,

"I can hear you, Mama! I've been going to school! I haven't missed a day in months!" Then under her breath, "Not that you'd notice."

A knock sounded on the door and Jia's mother put down her apple. She waved a hand for quiet at her children as she went to answer the door.

"Mrs Li-heng?"

"That's right." Jia's mother opened the door a little wider.

"We're here about the gas. We understand you're behind on your payments? We've been sent by head office."

Ru threw off his oven gloves and strode out of the kitchen, finger pointing at the two men in work clothes at the door.

"We are _not_ behind on anything- Don't you dare come in here and-"

"Stay back." Jia's mother snapped at her son. Ru started, surprised at her venom. Kuai frowned and felt himself shiver. He looked down at his arm and saw the hairs were standing up on end. Jia's mother sounded strained and terse, "For the gas? You say? What – ah – exactly is it you need to do?"

"Just take a look, Mrs Li-heng, check that our records are straight."

Kuai saw Jia's mother reach for her back pocket. There was a clicking sound and suddenly the gas workmen didn't look like workmen any more. One with a flat cap peaked over bleach blond hair had a gun pointed sideways into Mrs Li-Heng's face.

"Hands where we can see them nice and slowly, Mrs Li-heng." Mrs Li-Heng's arms raised very slowly and carefully.

Kuai's eyes were fixed on the gun. He swallowed and looked back at Jia from where she was hidden round the corner. She got down on her knees and began to crawl towards her mother's room. Kuai knew what she was going for. She placed one hand after the other, then each knee, taking care to avoid the spots where the floor creaked. A sudden wail hit the air as one of Jia's sister's began to cry from the bedroom.

"Who's there!" The blond capped man swung his pistol towards the corridor. "Fuck, this was meant to be empty, I didn't know there were ki-"

Mrs Heng hammered her first down on the gunman's wrist. The gun went off into the carpet. The cry of children intensified. Mrs Li-heng took the gun man's wrist and twisted it the wrong way, forcing the gun from his fingers as the wrist cracked. The gun fell to the floor. The man leant over his wrist hissing in pain. She continued through, swinging her leg into a full roundhouse aiming to come down on the man's head. Kuai saw the kick sail in a perfect circular arc, then suddenly stop with a jolt. The woman was plucked out the air before her foot even landed, and slammed against the wall.

"I don't think so." Said the second workman.

Kuai's blood ran cold and drained from his face. Panic lit his heart. He felt the room devoured of its temperature and heat.

The second workman, had dark hair and dark eyes and a voice like cold, cold winters.

"Don't hurt her!" Kuai screamed and ran, jumping on the arm already pulling back to punch through Mrs Li-heng's throat. The arm lifted easily with Kuai hanging on. He looked up and saw terrible eyes above him, eyes ready for death, eyes ready to kill. Tears jumped into Kuai's eyes as he held back his brother's arm.

Bi-Han stared at him. Kuai could feel all his anger and betrayal and fury. Kuai let got abruptly.

"Out of my way," Bi-Han snarled and knocked him aside with the back of his hand to his cheek. Kuai stumbled on the impact and fell back into a sofa. Mrs Li-heng did not waste the moment of distraction, she caught Bi-Han with a punch straight to the jaw, then brought both hands down on his grip and forced them off. As soon as her punch landed, Kuai could see the bloodlust go back up in his brother's movement.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Kuai cried and closed his eyes tight. "Brother, please!"

When he opened them again, Bi-Han was staring livid at him. Mrs Li-heng had a punch ready to throw, poised mid-way to her target. Jia stood at the edge of the room with a gun in her hands. It's nose drooped at Kuai's words.

"Brother?" She said. There was such a look of disbelief in her eyes. And pain.

Mrs Li-heng disentangled herself and pushed Bi-Han away, spitting and wiping blood from her lip. The blond man in the cap straightened from where he'd been doubled over. Kuai recognised him as Teddy.

"Jinhai, what's your fucking kid brother doing here?"

"Hell if I know." Bi-Han gave in a deadened tone that made Kuai shiver.

"Let's get out of here." Teddy picked up his gun and shoved it into his belt. He backed away slowly, eyes on Jia's weapon, "What is that? Is that police issue?"

Jia put the gun quickly behind her back.

"Fuck me, it is." Teddy laughed as he backed towards the door. Mrs Li-heng followed them with her eyes, fists raised as she stood between her assailants and her children. Bi-Han grabbed Kuai by the collar and hauled him out behind them.

Teddy grabbed the door knob,

"Be seeing you, copper." He gave her a cold grin and pulled the door shut behind him.

* * *

 **Author Note:** _I chose this estate by satellite view mostly because it's location and look fitted what I wanted for this story. I wanted this side story going on with gentrification and looked up the history of the estate just to see if there was anything from life I could pull into fiction. It turns out this estate underwent renovation from 1998-2005/7 in which 16,000 residents were relocated from their homes so that the blocks could be renovated. They already had residents in from a previous estate renovation elsewhere. It took nearly ten years to complete, and whilst looking through the planning documents, I found notes where the planning authorities were worried about the legalities surrounding forcing people out of the home if they did not evacuate them willingly. People had five months to evacuate their homes and move into their newly allocated homes elsewhere. The management wanted to make this period even shorter to keep their costs down. Rents were raised in blocks where residents refused to leave buildings that had been marked for development. Residents were relocated all over Hong Kong, with many moved over 20km north from Hong Kong Island to the mainland. A real life age 10 Jia would have been relocated in the late 90s, leaving her home and school. By the time her family would have been able to move back home she would have been over eighteen._


	17. Faults Worn With Pride

Kuai lay still under his blanket. It wasn't that late, but he had decided bed was the best place to be just then. He felt cold. He never usually felt cold. Not natural cold anyway. But cryomancer cold was of a different kind. It sunk into one's bones and would not be dislodged. He could feel his brother's anger palpable in the room around him, too cold even for Kuai to weather. He lay shivering in his bed. Despite the chill, he still pressed a palm spread with cryomancy ice to his cheek. The place Bi-Han had struck him during the confusion at Jia's apartment had come up as a purple welt. He bit his lip and wished he were back in the Temple, and that Tomas could be there to say something to disperse the atmosphere.

Bi-Han had been moving about the kitchen for some time, sorting things, taking out his anger on kitchen ware, and making plans that involved lots of swearing.

The thick strip of warm light coming into the bedroom from the kitchen was suddenly blocked out. Kuai held his breath. A shadow fell over him. He curled his fingers so that Bi-Han could not see him cooling the bruise and watched the shadows grow long and black about him.

"I know you're awake. Sit up."

Kuai sat very slowly. He looked up, but Bi-Han's face was hidden by the darkness. Bi-Han stepped forward. Kuai pressed himself against the wall.

"Please don't hurt me."

"Do you know what you've done?"

Kuai swallowed and shook his head. His eyes were already red from tears, and it only took this one sentence to start them off again. He hoped the dark would hide them.

"I'm sorry, Bi-Han." He choked, "I didn't know you'd be there – I just went to my friend's house! I left you her address weeks ago – I didn't know you would be there, I-"

"You stood between me and a target."

"Because it was Jia's mother! She's not who you think she is, Bi-Han! She's working undercover! She's a police officer!"

"I don't give a fuck who she is, I was ordered to kill her. And you stopped me."

"She's one of the good guys trying to bring the gang down!"

"Kuai Liang!" Bi-Han snapped. Kuai flinched. "Look at me!"

Kuai could only see shadows. Bi-Han flicked on a light. It was bright in Kuai's unaccustomed eyes.

"Do I look like a fucking good guy to you, Kuai Liang? You think I care about gangs and police? You think I care who wins and who dies? Who lives another day? Who makes money, who has families, who goes to school with my little brother?! I don't care about _any_ of it. All that matters is the _mission_. I'm not here to _save_ anyone, and I'm certainly not here to babysit _you._ I'm here to kill who I need to kill and I don't expect you to get in my way!"

Kuai was caught part way between terror and epiphany. He shrunk deeper into his corner, but all he could think of was the confession that Bi-Han was not one of the good people.

"You are good..." Kuai said unsteadily, tears still rolling gently down his cheeks, "Y-you look after me and Tomas – you make sure we aren't mistreated, or go hungry, or hurt. You always own up to things Tomas and I are in trouble for. You even get between me and our teachers when they try to punish me! You're the most good person I know and I want to be just like you! You _are_ good! And so is Jia's mother! A-and your mission here is to stop this gang, so I don't see why you can't work with Jia's m-"

"Today my mission is to kill a gang member, another day it might be to assassinate a police chief. What about this don't you understand?! There is no good and bad, Kuai Liang. There's just violence. Violence tolerated by governments and violence not tolerated. And the line between the two is the place where violence goes unnoticed. This is the Lin Kuei: the grey zone between permitted and illegal. Hired to kill by those with power, unproblematic so long as we're undetected." He leaned down and Kuai could feel the air hit painfully cold temperatures around him, "Do not make the mistake of thinking that any of the people I pretend to care for in this facade of a life matter to me. They are tools – rungs on a ladder I must climb to reach my target. Which is why I don't appreciate it when you smash the ladder I'm climbing, Kuai Liang!"

Kuai looked at him and his lip trembled.

"Sorry." He said quietly.

" _Sorry_." Said Bi-Han. " _Sorry_. What am I going to do with _sorry_. Li-heng Syun lives. I'm meant to be growing trust, a reputation. Do you realise how little I can fit in with these people – with their world? There is _nothing_ I have in common with them – their tastes, their history, their culture, their context, their likes, their loves, their passions, their hates, their fears, but _killing –_ killing is the one thing I _can_ do, Kuai Liang. The one place I can achieve without thinking, without having to pretend to be something else. Now I must go back and simper, make amends, make excuses – I fucking detest excuses. I set my mind to something and I _do_ it. But now I must go back and confess to having failed at _killing –_ the one area in life I excel at." Bi-Han pointed a finger hard into Kuai's chest. Kuai didn't have any space to wriggle back away from him, so instead he swallowed and looked up with large, contrite eyes. "So don't you _ever-_ " Bi-Han prodded him hard, " _Ever_ get between me and my target again. Understand?!"

Kuai nodded vigorously, not trusting himself to speak. He could see his brother was still angry. Bi-Han did not often lash out at anyone. He was reserved with his violence, keeping it pent up until a legitimate target was set before his blinkered vision. Once or twice there had been exceptions though. Kuai had no intention of provoking such an exception now. Bi-Han straightened and walked away. His back thumped against the far wall and he slumped slowly until he sat cross-legged on the low mattress of his bed.

"I could have killed you today." His tone became more reserved and resigned, "I didn't know you were there. I wasn't expecting-… I'm about to pull the throat out of a victim and I feel something holding my arm stopping me. If I hadn't looked down – if I hadn't caught myself – if I had responded instinctively – that's it. You would have been dead."

"I'm sorry, Bi-Han," Kuai said again, but it was as if Bi-Han hadn't heard him.

"If I'd killed you, I never would have gone back. What's the point? What would have been the point? Surviving this long... Training to hold back the tides and my own hand cuts off your life. I would have walked off the edge of that sixteen storey building without looking back-"

"B-Bi-Han!" Kuai interrupted the monologue with a cry of dismay. Bi-Han fell silent. Kuai wanted to go to him, but he was much too afraid.

"Every day I kid myself all I do is to protect you, but lets be honest the biggest risk to your life is being close to me. Can't feed you, can't stop myself mid-fight when I hear your voice-"

"Bi-Han," Kuai said again, "Y-you're not a risk to me – you look after me, you-"

"Terrified out of your wits just from being in the same room as me."

"I-I'm not!" Kuai still drew his blanket closer to him. "I-I'm not afraid! Not… now that you're less angry, anyway."

Bi-Han sighed in exasperation.

Kuai drew his breath in and gathered his courage. The room was still cold. He stood and stepped tentatively towards his brother.

"M… may I sit next to you?"

Bi-Han gave a sharp jerk of his head. Kuai sat slowly on the bed next to him, still allowing a safe distance between them. He reached hand out and placed it on top of Bi-Han's. It was small on top of his brother's.

"I'm sorry I made a mess of things for you today," He said quietly, "But you will find a way to make it work for you. You always find a way to make things work. Everything you do works out perfect. I want so much to be like you and to do everything perfectly too. I'm sorry I always get in the way, and I'm sorry you're always having to look out for me. One day I'll be good enough that you won't have to stand up for me, or worry for me."

Quiet settled in the room. It took all Kuai's courage to keep his palm resting on his brother's cold hard calloused knuckles. The hand lifted from under his. He retracted quickly. Bi-Han's hand settled on his head and ruffled his hair.

"Idiot. You could be a grown man and I'd still worry for you."

Kuai's face split into a radiant smile at the contact and gentle words. His fear vanished and he sighed, letting Bi-Han tousle his hair.

"Besides," Bi-Han said, already thinking of his next steps, "This may not be a total disaster. Your antics did reveal one unexpected element. Li-heng Syun is an undercover police officer. I suppose it could have unnecessarily have dragged another faction into this mess if she'd been killed. Police have a habit of taking their clan deaths very seriously. And there may be a way to use this information to our advantage."

"You could work with her! As a cool duo taking down the gang from the inside!"

Bi-Han gave him a withering look.

"Still," Kuai continued quickly, glancing up hopefully, "I maybe didn't ruin everything then?"

"Oh, you definitely did. But that doesn't mean I can't try and find a way to play this to my advantage."

"Because you're so amazing at what you do." Kuai leaned his head into his brother's arm, deliberately provoking his irritation.

"Urgh. Get off me with your sentimentality." His feral mood from earlier was gone, and that was all that mattered to Kuai.

Kuai sat silently next to him, at peace again. A car passed outside and its headlights turned the kitchen a momentary swivel of light. He liked watching the way the shadows turned in a pirouette about the room. He listened to his brother's breathing and frowned slightly.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Bi-Han sighed, but he quickly gave up his pretence, "I have to make a call to the Temple tonight."

Kuai chewed his lip,

"Do you have to tell the Grandmaster everything? Maybe you can just talk about your progress and leave out the..."

"...Part where you undid all my hard work? Yes, I'd love to, but Sektor is taking the call."

"Sektor!? Why!?"

"Eh," It was Bi-Han's turn to look faintly sheepish, "I may have… stepped out of line last time. Angered the Grandmaster. My penance is to report to the insufferable prince of paranoia himself."

"He's only paranoid about you upstaging him, Bi-Han. If you just gave him a little chance to shine, especially in front of the Grandmaster-"

"If he wants to shine he should get good. I'm not going to step into the sidelines to let an underachieving, spoilt-"

"Bi-Han," Kuai chided, "He's hardly underachieving."

"I'll let him know he's got a fan who wants to speak to him next time."

"No, don't!" Kuai said too quickly.

Bi-Han laughed.

Kuai glared at him.

"Get some sleep." Bi-Han stood and stretched. "We have a long day tomorrow."

"We?"

"You're not going to school tomorrow. You're coming with me. You'll ease the blow when I have to tell Nathaniel Yeung the details of what happened."

"But tomorrow I have a chemistry test that's-"

Bi-Han gave him a sharp glance. Kuai left off that way of talking and bowed his head in assent,

"It would be an honour to accompany you. I've been wanting to spend more time with you recently."

Bi-Han nodded, pleased with the answer.

"Good. Sleep well, Kuai Liang."

By rights he should have used a different pay phone. He'd been to Hong Kong before, and remembered seeing more of them around in the past. They were on their way out he supposed, touching a finger to the 'mobile phone' in his pocket. He ground his teeth. It would be irritating if this was the way technology developed. He liked the idea of an incriminating telephone line not following him around everywhere in his pocket.

The streetlamp over the pay phone still hadn't been replaced, so he, the empty blue road, and the solemn gateway to the next door graveyard were left in dull dark. He instinctively glanced up, looking for the familiar stars that were always above the Lin Kuei Temple. Today it wasn't even the city lights that hid them. A thick roll of cloud shrouded all the sky.

He picked up the phone receiver reluctantly. He pressedd it irritably to his forehead and expelled his breath, cold and visible. He dialled. The phone rang three times before it was picked up. Bi-Han gave a tapped rhythm and an answering one was returned.

"We are more stealthful than the night." The voice on the other end sounded tired.

"And more deadly than the dawn. If our recruits can stay awake that long."

The voice on the other end snapped to attention at the sound of his voice,

"My apologies, Sub-Zero. You're late with the call. We just got a berating down here from Sektor, he was expecting you ten minutes ago."

"I know. I like to keep him on his toes. Transfer me."

Bi-Han drummed his fingers as he waited. The phone was silent for a bit, then crackled to life.

"Is this Sub-Zero?"

Bi-Han hesitated. The voice sounded surprisingly reasonable. After his last display, he decided to play it safe.

"It is. I'm calling to deliver my report."

"Your fucking late."

Bi-Han breathed a silent sigh of relief, so it was Sektor after all.

"Time difference."

"Oh." Sektor deflated momentarily, "Wait a godsdamn moment, you're in Hong Kong, there is no fucking time difference!"

"Your language is colourful this evening, Sektor." Bi-Han said sweetly.

"Not as colourful as your face would be if you were here right now."

"I'm afraid no amount of flattery from you could make me blush."

"I meant a black eye, moron."

"My apologies. Such an unlikely event that it never entered my mind."

"You're stalling, and not just out of your usual obnoxious attitude. Has the great Sub-Zero finally slipped up?"

That caught Bi-Han by surprise. Sektor was easy to rile up and divert off topic. Usually.

"A telling silence."

"It's not an _anything_ silence," Bi-Han snapped.

"Did baby brother put his foot in your perfect plans? Enough people told you it was an idiotic idea to take a child with you on a mission, but no, perfect Bi-Han persuades the Grandmaster to let him-"

"It had nothing to do with Kuai Liang. I flunked a request made of me by the Triads. A request that in no meaningful way sets me any further from my goal."

There was quiet from the other side of the line, and for a moment Bi-Han thought the lie might have been detected. The Grandmaster would have seen through him, but Sektor always had a soft spot for hunting down and pinning personal failures on Bi-Han. A slow low laugh came through the receiver.

"Come now, Sub-Zero. Details. The whole clan is going to know this one."

"I will update you on what is relevant to my mission. That incident is barely even noteworthy."

"You will do as you are ordered."

There was a stiff silence. Bi-Han's teeth set together and he could see frost crowding on the phonebox under his palm. Sektor seemed to sense Bi-Han's silent anger. He spoke softly,

"Do we need to take this upstairs?"

"No." Bi-Han said quickly.

"Good. Details."

Bi-Han reluctantly gave a fabricated version of the truth. Something involving him slipping up, distracted by the sight of his victim's child, making him hesitate. Sektor would see that as believable: he knew Bi-Han's deep compassion for Kuai. What Sektor was less well acquainted with was the single-minded bloodlust that took over Bi-Han at the moment of murder that meant nothing in the world short of his own brother would stay his hand once he raised it with intent to kill.

When he was done, Sektor sounded positively gleeful.

"I'll make sure this is reported in full to the Grandmaster. Now, you made an information request on Benjamin Ng?"

Bi-Han tried to keep the testiness out of his voice,

"Yes."

"Well, genius, we've got no record of him. Is this a home run of inefficiency for our rising star of the Lin Kuei?"

"No record of him is good. I wanted confirmation that it's likely this man changed his name. The Lin Kuei archive should have heard of Benjamin Ng, that there isn't one is telling."

"Telling, or perhaps just incompetent on your part. Getting hard to tell the two apart."

Bi-Han ground his teeth together. This was useful information. He just had to keep calm,

"Can I give the rest of my mission report now?"

"I think that will do for today, Sub-Zero."

"Sektor, damnit, I have solid progress to report, don't you dare tell the Grandmaster that's all I-"

He heard the dull deadened tone that marked the end of the call. The other end had been hung up. Bi-Han thumped the phone to his forehead.

" _Shit_ _._ "

He hung up the phone and place both hands over his face. The whole way up the road he had told himself over and over – keep it cool, don't be arrogant, keep it professional. If he kept going at this rate he could complete a perfect mission and still come home to hell on earth. He ran his hand back through his hair.

" _Shit._ " He said again quietly to the night air.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I bet he's a hard big brother to live with. And after you've watched him nearly kill someone, I bet you'd be worried in a very different kind of way about being around him. But I also reckon it's tought to be Bi-Han. So many things to worry about, and how does tiny brother always manage to get himself stuck in the middle of them?


	18. Indemnity for the Past

He had not yet gone home. He had walked. He had walked a long way. He had walked up into the hills and down into the north side of Hong Kong Island. The city never seemed to sleep. There was always light, always noise, always colour. It was not so different from home though. As long as he did not have to partake in life here and could pretend to be a citizen, then he could walk and be alone. People, places, and light became to him as empty and absent as still tall pines, and blank, snow-crusted mountains. He spent so little time amongst others, speaking and socialising, that as a default he became shadow-like. He occupied the periphery of vision, moving in and out of light and dark in a fluid, quiet way that slipped from attention. He enjoyed occupying this liminal space. These were the times he felt himself. And felt powerful. All around him were fragile sprigs of life, laughing, swapping snippets of conversation, and caught in each other's eyes. They had no comprehension of how close he was, of how easy it would be to snatch away all they took for granted.

He preferred to walk in wealthy areas. Wealth did strange things to people – they ignored things much more easily, as if accustomed to blocking out sights that did not suit them. It was much easier to remain unseen in wealthy areas of cities. Poor areas were full of real people. Real people who wanted things, or needed things, or worst of all, wanted to give him things or share things with him. Like cigarettes, or food, or stories. Encounters got too personal too quickly on down and out street corners. It was much easier to pass by unnoticed at a high class party.

He heard one now, recognisable by the distant tinny caw of vapid laughter. He was wearing an all black traditional high collar shirt and loose fitting formal trousers. Not exactly party material, but then again, the oversight was plain enough to be unnoticeable. This mission required him to stay in cover at all times. But he'd also just been one-upped by Sektor and had no foreseeable way to rectify the damage done. There were two voices in his head. A quiet voice was reminding him of his duty, whilst a louder one said _fuck it._

He turned into a quiet street bordering the east side of a high rise. It was an older building. He could feel dry mortars between the bricks as he pulled himself up. His fingers found impossibly small purchase holds on the bricks and he felt himself calm as the thrill and burn of the sheer ascent occupied his mind. He moved as he would up the cliff faces at home, picking out holds in the dim light and enjoying the rush he felt as the street below got smaller and his fingers began to tremble with exertion. He stepped on the lip of a window sill, bending out the way of its shadowy glass lest he be seen from within. He moved lithe and easy to its top rim then stretched and pressed his fingers into the brickwork. He hauled himself up higher and higher.

The party was on an open balcony just above him. He nudged a window open with his toe and slipped in on the floor below. The dull pound of music and clopping shoe heels reverberated through the ceiling. He straightened after his entry, arm muscles faintly burning with exertion from the ascent. He had landed in a darkened room with a grand piano, a coffee table and low seats. A door way of gold light bled into the room. He walked with purpose into the corridor. Light flooded his vision. He pushed through a curtain of glass beads and sidestepped to avoid two women laughing, coming the other way arm in arm and holding cocktail glasses. He let them pass them took a flight of steps up to the balcony. He lifted a glass from a tray as he stepped up into the night air.

And he was in. An invisible guest, fine dining and drinking in amidst placid nothings and empty conversations. He finally felt free and able to relax. He needed this. To be able to climb a mountain and find meditative calm at its peak, where the ebb and flow of life stilled to nothing. He had long ago found that cities too had their mountains and stillness. Sometimes cities seemed even more peaceful to him. Mountains and snow had a way of making him introspective. Introspection was always only a step away from lurking self-loathing. He never had much time for that. Whereas a city was crowded. Its stillness was less a stark mirror and more the stillness that comes of total movement. Ants moving in waves below his feet. Swapping introspection for power and control. He could fantasise about tearing it all down. All this privilege and pride on display and always only a pace away from violence.

Every assassination he had ever completed shared that single trait in common. Surprise. Even the greatest bosses, lords, and leaders of violent enterprises seemed surprised that such a lowly means could touch them of all people. Could enter their tightly woven cocoon and knock down the mighty from their unassailable perches. So much time, wealth, and power, spent building empires. They always seemed surprised that a knife could still cut their flesh.

He looked up at the sky. A faint purple tinge lit the clouds. It would be dawn in a few hours. If he started walking now he could still get home before Kuai woke up and make him breakfast. He had dreamed of waking every day on this mission and taking care of Kuai the way a normal brother might. Somehow his impatience and ambition still seemed to get the better of him even without the Lin Kuei breathing down his neck. Perhaps there was still time to remember the things he had wanted and cared for. He set down his cocktail glass and quietly dropped off the edge of the balcony.

Kuai awoke to the smell of frying and the soft hissing of oil in a pan. He yawned and glanced over at his brother's unslept bed. He padded through to the kitchen, shoulders sloped with tired, and baggy sleeping clothes all tousled like his hair.

"Bi-Han?" He said, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Bi-Han had an apron on. Nothing was burning or frozen. Kuai's eyes opened a little wider.

"You're cooking?"

"I'm hurt by your tone of surprise."

Kuai yawned again and shuffled himself into a chair at the kitchen table. Bi-Han set a plate down before him. Kuai stared.

"What is that?"

"Sausages. Eat up. We're heading into town when the school bus arrives."

Kuai paused with a sausage part way to his mouth,

"We're catching the school bus into town?"

"Right direction and it's calling soon."

"But… Bi-Han you're not a school kid, they won't let you on..."

"Is that a challenge?"

Kuai let out a sigh. He chewed his breakfast, pulling a face at how hot it was. He blew icy air onto it and re-chewed.

"These are really good, thank you, Bi-Han. But also – everyone will see you on the bus with me..."

"You're embarrassed?!" Kuai had never been embarrassed of him in his entire life. The idea was faintly startling to Bi-Han.

"No! No, of course not." Kuai laughed nervously, "Just…" He focussed quickly on his breakfast again, "These sauce ages are really good, Bi-Han."

" _Sausages_. Yes. You already said. I'm curious, Kuai. What is it about me you will find embarrassing? You constantly keep in my shadow at the Temple so that people will remember you're my brother. A few weeks in Hong Kong and what, I'm an uncultured hindrance to you?"

Kuai could hear a slight edge to Bi-Han's playful tone. He was letting this conversation stay light, but still harboured a genuine concern under the mild manner.

"Bi-Han, don't be silly. It's just you're an adult on a bus meant for kids!"

Bi-Han stole one of the sausages off Kuai's plate and leant on the table.

"I'll blend in for you. And not say a single embarrassing thing about you unless slightly provoked, in which case I'll spill all your darkest secrets. Get dressed. Comb your hair. And put on something smart."

Kuai groaned.

Embarrassed was an understatement. Kuai Liang was mortified as Bi-Han caught the bus with him. He could see sniggering faces as students turned to each other, and mutterings that wondered none-too-quietly about why Tao needed a grown-up to help him go to school today. He glanced over at his usual seat. Jia was there. She looked pale. Her eyes were wide and afraid. Kuai didn't think he'd ever seen her look properly afraid before. She looked properly afraid when she saw Bi-Han. Kuai realised with a sinking heart that to Jia, Bi-Han was nothing more than her mother's would-be murderer. Kuai sunk into a seat near the door, hoping the shadows would swallow him up. Bi-Han sat down heavily next to him. The bus conductor was still floundering at his presence, but Kuai supposed Bi-Han had used his usual combination at vague charm, determined ignorance, and thinly veiled threat to bluster through.

The bus started up and a girl Kuai knew was called Elizabeth turned around in her seat, kneeling so that she could look at them from the seat in front.

"Hey, Mister." She said at Bi-Han, "Don't you know this is a bus for school children?"

"Turn around, sit down, and shut up." Bi-Han said so harshly that the girl immediately looked apologetic. She quickly did as she was told.

Kuai squidged himself into the window to make himself small. He saw Bi-Han give a slight smile, clearly enjoying the discomfort and embarrassment he was causing.

"Hey mister?" A boy on the opposite side of the aisle angled for Bi-Han's attention. "Hey mister."

"What." Said Bi-Han without patience.

"Are you Tao's Dad? How come you look so strong and Tao is all weedy?"

"I'm not his father. I'm his brother."

"Why does he need his brother to take him to school? Is it because of Nianzu?"

Bi-Han's eyes became suddenly sharp,

"Because of who now?"

Kuai started,

"It's nothing, really." He glared daggers at the boy opposite. Kuai tugged Bi-Han's sleeve, and said quietly, "Bi-Han, please, can't you-"

Bi-Han caught his wrist between his thumb and forefinger and held it out of sight. Kuai winced as he felt a flow of freezing cold bolt through his wrist. A shuddering gasp escaped him.

"My cover name only whilst out of the house," Bi-Han said through teeth fixed in a smile. Kuai nodded vigorously. His hand was returned to him and he nursed it, kneading life back into the cold.

"I could have heard you just as well without you freezing my hand off." Kuai hissed back in equally hushed tones.

"Discuss cryomancy again and it will be much more than a hand."

Kuai sighed, his shoulders sloping in dejection.

The school bus was excited to have an adult on it. They fired random questions at Bi-Han, who on the whole was happy to comply, especially when it involved embarrassing his shy little brother even further. The good humour at his presence was abruptly brought to a halt when Bi-Han made the bus stop. He had the driver pull up and he and Kuai hopped off.

"But this isn't the school! How come Tao's not going to school?!" Followed them as they left. Just for a fraction Kuai felt proud as all the astonished school children pressed their faces to the window as Bi-Han broke all the rules they knew.

"You're so lucky, Tao! I wish my brother would sneak me off the school bus!"

"Are you going to the cinema? The cinema's not far from here!"

"What a cool guy!"

Then Kuai scowled at them. If they only knew the half of it. He watched their jealous faces move away as the lights changed.

"The apartment isn't far from here." Bi-Han set off. Kuai had almost forgotten they were going to meet mobsters about a failed assassination.

There were purply grey clouds whisping about between the high rise buildings. All these buildings were thin mirror spikes reflecting the mood of the day out across the harbour beyond. Kuai tried to put Jia's look of terror and his own glumness behind him.

"B-..." He stopped, unsure what to call his brother when they were alone but not in the house.

"What?"

"What should I say Uncle Nat? I don't want to mess things up again. I don't want to make things worse. I always make things worse for you."

"Just stand there and look cute. It'll take the edge off whatever happens."

Kuai cheeks puffed up red and his brow churned into furrows,

"I am not _cute!_ I am a L-"

" _Yes?_ What was that you wanted to announce to the street there?"

Kuai swallowed. Shouting about being a Lin Kuei assassin on the streets of Hong Kong, maybe wasn't his best idea, but he was still not backing down over this.

"I'm not _cute_ , Bi-Han. I'm a warrior, and I've been getting on perfectly fine without you before you came and sat on that bus and made it look like I need you to hold my hand everywhere!"

"Stop saying my name. You want two frozen hands?" Bi-Han tilted his head, "That expression there where you try to look angry at me. That's the cute face you should pull for Nathaniel."

Kuai chased Bi-Han down the street. He was still furious when Bi-Han stopped before brass plated double glass doors laughing. He had a grin on his face that he hid well in his tone of voice as he spoke over the microphone.

"Zho Jinhai to see Mr Yeung."

The brass doors buzzed open. There was carpet in the lobby. It had spiralling floral patterns that made Kuai feel dizzy. He kept close to Bi-Han as they entered an elevator. There were mirrors on all the walls of the lift. Kuai looked at his small peaked face and tousled black hair in the mirror. He tried to flattened his hair. He realised he barely came up to his brother's elbow. He sighed. Maybe the boy on the bus had been right. Maybe he wasn't related to Bi-Han at all. There was no way he was going to look that tall or strong or intimidating.

"I appreciated last time you came with me to the cafe with the burgers." Bi-Han said suddenly. "You deflected the conversation well and saved me a lot of trouble. I want you here again to help me. I'm worried they'll be angry at me and my mission will fail before it's started."

Kuai blinked. Damn Bi-Han and his pride, squeezing all this into the few seconds before they met with his undercover mobster boss. Kuai looked at him. Unsure what to say and startled by how revealing and naked that confession was.

"I won't go back empty-handed. Nomatter what that fuck Sektor says or does." Bi-Han said decisively.

Kuai had no idea what this was about, but they had all of ten seconds before the elevator doors opened. He gave Bi-Han his best smile, trying to show all his care and adoration in that one small gesture. Then the doors opened, and they were in a new, brighter corridor. Nat's high collared, sunglassed bodyguard met them in the corridor.

"Ben," Bi-Han said in his cordial voice that Kuai knew was a veiled 'I wish someone would let me kill you' voice.

Ben said nothing and walked them to the apartment door. He opened it with one hand. Kuai felt a tingle of anxiety go down his spine, like he did before he met the Grandmaster.

Nathaniel was standing almost silhouetted against the bright morning sky before floor-to-ceiling windows. The view beyond was stunning. Kuai could see the bright aquamarine of the ocean and the grey rocky stone that held it off from the curl of the island. And the place where the thick line of sea became the faded washed out shades of the sky. He wondered how long it would take for a cryomancer to walk that far, turning the waves crests to ice.

"Jinhai." Said Nathaniel coldly.

Kuai's attention came thundering back to reality. He saw his brother stiffen. It was that uncertain stiffen where he feared that the Grandmaster's punishment might be dealt to Kuai instead. But Nathaniel was no Grandmaster, Kuai knew, and he grew less afraid.

"Hello, Mr Yeung! I mean- Uncle Nat! My brother brought me along too, I hope that's ok!" Nathaniel turned quickly. An expression of deep irritation smoothed from his face on seeing Kuai.

"Tao. No… I'm glad you came. It's nice to see you again." Nathaniel sounded earnest when he said that, but Kuai didn't have time to process that.

"Jinhai said I should come to… apologise to you." He looked at his feet in imitation of contrition. He channelled some of the despair and sincerity from last night into his posture. He looked up again at Nathaniel's puzzled face, "I made a mistake and messed things up a-and I want to apologise to you Uncle Nat, because you bought me such a nice burger and all I did was mess up your plans..." He thoughts went to ice cold wrists, Bi-Han's fury, and the possibility of ruining everything for him. Slight tears blinked real into his eyes and he showed them off for Nathaniel.

The young man seemed startled at that.

"Ah… sit down please..." He gestured and they all sat themselves on a low couch. "Teddy, fetch me a beer."

"Sir, it's nine-thirty AM, you said to remind you you don't want to drink-"

"Just fetch me my damn beer!" Nathaniel turned a more patient face to Kuai, then to Bi-Han, "I heard what happened from Teddy. Li-heng Syun's whole family were there, and your little brother…"

"Li-heng Jia is my friend!" Kuai put in, "I was just visiting her! I didn't know her mama was a bad person! I didn't know she'd upset you or anything, and I was so surprised when Jinhai and Teddy burst in – I didn't understand she was the bad guy! A-and… I tried to stop Jinhai from hurting her." He looked down. That contrition was true enough. "But whatever you want from Ms Li-heng, I'm sure I can help, Uncle Nat! Please don't be angry at her, she's my friend's mother and I don't have a mother but I wouldn't want anyone to be angry at my brother and it must be the same for people with other family like mothers too!"

There was a pause. Kuai's heart had run away with him there. Apart from anything else, he'd said all this in Mandarin, not at all the standard way of communicating. Nat's eyes were dark and unreadable.

"Nathaniel, sir." Bi-Han said. Kuai could hear him treading carefully, unsure what Kuai had stirred up, "He's just here to apologise." Bi-Han shot Kuai a side-long warning glare, "He apologises for getting in the way, as I apologise for failing this task."

"Perhaps if you had not been so hot-headed and eager to start with, Li-heng Syun might now be dead." Ben said coolly. He had come in and shut the door of the apartment. He now stood stoic by the door.

"Or perhaps if you'd listened and reconned the area properly we would have known her entire family was present and operation go-in-the-front-door could have been cut in the bud before it got out of hand." Bi-Han's eyes were ice as he glared at Ben.

"That's true, I suppose." Nathaniel said thoughtfully. He clicked open the beer can Teddy passed him. He lifted it to his lips and sipped. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and set the can down. "Too early for beer," He muttered. He swivelled and put his legs up on the long seat. He sighed and put his hands behind his head. "Teddy says she's police."

Bi-Han nodded,

"Seems so. Could be powerful information in the right hands."

"Grace would thank me for it if she knew."

"Or perhaps she already knows."

Nat's eyes narrowed. He sat back up straight and set Bi-Han with a look. He spoke softly,

"Are you implying my sister is a rat for the police? My own blood and flesh sister."

"Am I?" Bi-Han's eyes were twinkling like they did before he started killing things. Kuai shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Tread carefully, Jinhai."

"Do you want rid of her or not? She claims to be canny. Well, turn that on her. Claim she's been working for the police all along."

"And play my father? I don't think so. He'd know in a second. He only has to look at me to see through me." Nat sounded bitter.

"Is it really so much of a lie? How could you know if Grace was really using the police force for her own ends? And besides, you don't need to make the accusation, only lay the tracks. Its up to her to prove her innocence. At the very least she's a floundering leak, out of favour, and feeding the police information. Is it so much better if she's fed all the information in ignorance? She's messed up big time. Go for the throat and hang on."

Nathaniel's eyebrows raised.

"Another barman's proverb?"

"Call it an old rural Chinese proverb. Seems Hong Kong could do with a few more of them."

The dynamic in the room had changed considerably. Kuai could feel the tension dissipating all about him. Nathaniel reached for his cigarette case. He sucked on the end of an unlit cigarette.

"If Li-heng Syun knows we're onto her she'll have skipped town. It'd be very convenient if my one shred of evidence that my sister's in with the police has up and left."

Teddy joined them on the sofas,

"Not with that whole family and the police budget at what it is. They can't relocate you that fast."

 _They might if you got yourself onto the Block 3 relocation list,_ Kuai thought. But he didn't say that. He'd save to tell Jia, just in case.

"Ben," Nathaniel sat upright and looked over at Ben, his cigarette was going limp in his mouth, "What do you think?"

"I think you want me to tell you it's a bad idea so that you don't have to go and confront your father."

Nathaniel covered his eyes with a hand.

"It's too soon."

"You last spoke with him nearly a year ago."

"He made absolutely clear what he thought of me when he sent you to watch over my every move."

Ben folded his arms and looked down at Nathaniel,

"Or perhaps I'm here to guard you because he considers you an asset he does not wish to lose."

Nathaniel looked down. His dejected face reminded Bi-Han of Kuai.

"Please don't be sad." Kuai said suddenly, "I'm sure your father cares for you very much." Bi-Han glared at him, but Nathaniel only smiled weakly.

He sighed and brushed artful hair out of his face,

"I don't know. I'll have to think on this. The police belong to our family in this part of town. It's a big deal if they're infiltrating us. Using the police against my own family… I don't know. There are some matters that still require honour."

"Honour is for the dead and dying." Bi-Han gave carelessly.

Ben frowned and looked at him. Nathaniel stood,

"We shall see." He pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket and pressed a button. "Hm. Ray and Royce were meant to be here by now, they should-" The buzzer rang. "Oh. Speak of the devil- let them in, Ben."

Ben buzzed the downstairs door open from a panel set in the wall.

Nat looked at Kuai,

"So, Tao. What exactly is it you think your brother does for me."

Kuai blushed and looked uncomfortable.

"I… I don't know, sir. Is… is he like a bodyguard for you?"

Nat gave a thin smile,

"And what do you think it is that _I_ do, Tao."

Kuai's fingers twisted in his lap.

"You're… a… a businessman?"

"Good answer."

Bi-Han was stiff and silent. Nat gave him a grin. Kuai watched the exchanged, aware that he was somehow being used to put his brother back in line. Nat stood when he heard footsteps outside the door. Kuai looked at Bi-Han's hand resting on the sofa. He so badly wanted to hold even just one finger to reassure his brother, or maybe to reassure himself, he wasn't sure. He had learnt the hard way in the Lin Kuei that affection did not belong in the clan. Even if Bi-Han let him come a little closer in the privacy of their home, there was no way any contact would be permitted in public. Kuai lowered his eyes, feeling helpless.

Nat opened the door onto Royce and Ray. Ray had two crutches and a pained expression on his face. Royce was standing stiffly beside him. The barbed wire tattooed onto his neck bobbed as he swallowed.

"What?" Said Nat, confused at their faces. Kuai felt a coldness from his left. He glanced at Bi-Han and saw intent in his eyes, and the soft blue of pulsating ice lingering under the veins on his arm. His big hand took Kuai's small one and held it. He stood slowly, drawing Kuai behind him.

Nathaniel frowned at Royce and Ray,

"What's up? Come in, what are you waiting f-" Nathaniel's eyes widened as he saw a dull grey barrel of a gun behind Royce's head. His hand went for his jacket.

"Uh uh ah, Nat. Not unless you want these boys back in the hospital. Or the morgue." The barrel nudged Royce forward. The slight frame of Grace Yeung appeared behind him, her round green glasses flashing in the light. Beside her with another gun cocked was Syun Li-heng. Bi-Han stared at the woman he had been sent to kill yesterday. She stared back at him.

"Sorry to bust up your party." Grace swept into the room, finding Ben and pointing her gun at his head. Behind her Syun Li-heng was retraining a barrel at Royce, "But I think someone here punctured the eyes of a client of mine?" Her light expression hardened into a thin ruthless line, "Tommy Chow was under my protection, Nathaniel."

* * *

 **Author Note:** Whoops maybe shouldn't have poked that man's eyes out, Bi-Han. Or taken your brother to meet mobsters.

Shout out to fyvaproldg, thanks very much for your reviews! Glad to hear things were anticipated but still a surprise! And yes I absolutely think Bi-Han is a master of arrogant smarmy come-backs when he wants to be! Let's never forget his cool cool MK9 entrance when Scorpion claims he will not kill Sub-Zero. Bi-Han strides through the door and says "Will not, or cannot?" :p


	19. Into the Eye of the Storm

Bi-Han's heartbeat was loud in his mouth. His usual calm was a barely held facade. He could feel Kuai's hand clinging tightly to his. His brother was just behind him, shielded out of sight. He wondered if a gunshot at this range would go through his body and hit Kuai.

"Grace." Nat had a matter-of-fact voice. It didn't sound nearly as afraid as it should given the circumstances, Bi-Han thought. "Tommy Chow is a dick. And that's all he thinks with too."

"He's a dick under my protection, little brother. I'm not sure why you find family politics so hard to understand. I do keep trying to relieve you of your responsibilities, but somehow you keep screwing up the few that remain to you." Grace pushed her green glasses further up her nose, and clicked the safety off the gun she was pointing at Ben, Nat's silent bodyguard.

"For fuck's sake, Grace! If you'd heard the things he was saying about you, you wouldn't be complaining that I-"

"Yes, which one of you did pull his eyes out?"

There was silence. Royce and Ray stood apologetic and shameful by the door under the watchful nose of a gun held by Syun Li-heng. Ben was silent and stoic, even as he stared down Grace's firearm. Nat narrowed his eyes. Teddy's eyes went slowly to Bi-Han. Grace's gaze followed Teddy's.

"The kid?" She looked at Bi-Han as if for the first time.

Bi-Han gave a thin, empty smile,

"Technically I put his eyes in, not out." Bi-Han could feel Kuai's small hand shiver in his. His heart fell. He always felt ashamed when something he did frightened his brother. It made him feel more a monster than any accusation ever could.

Grace looked at him. So did Syun Li-Heng.

Nat spoke up,

"Look, Grace. I'm sorry I stuck up for you by having some ratbag put in his place for disrespecting you, but cut me some slack, ok? What are you going to do, shoot me? And deny Father the opportunity himself?" Nat blushed suddenly. All the attention swivelled back to him. Grace's face was unreadable behind her bright green round glasses.

When she spoke she sounded gruffer,

"Don't kid yourself, he might hate you, but he'd send me to the ocean floor for so much as laying a finger on you. I'm not here to kill you, Nat. Well, I mean," She looked between Teddy, Ray, Royce, and Bi-Han, "I might kill some of your lackeys if you can't shut up and do what your told, but your precious Yeung _heir_ head stays on it's shoulders today."

Teddy inched closer to Nat and whispered to him. Bi-Han saw his eyes glance at Syun Li-heng. If there was going to be a time to divide and conquer in Grace's ranks, this might be it. Grace pulled a second gun from a holster at her waist and used the arm pointed across at Ben to steady an aim at Teddy.

"Something to share? It's Theodore, right?"

Teddy blushed, he looked at Syun Li-heng then looked down quickly.

"Nathaniel?" Grace turned to her brother instead, "What's the big secret? Probably best not to keep them in a room full of drawn guns."

Nat looked at Syun. Then at Ben. Ben looked back at him. Nat swallowed,

"I-"

From the corner near the door Syun Li-heng's gun clicked as the bullet loaded into the chamber. She was aiming at Ray's head. The deliberate sound made Nat stop.

"I'm still waiting, Nathaniel." There was an unmistakeable testiness to Grace's voice.

Bi-Han felt Kuai hold his hand tighter. Surely Syun Li-heng wouldn't shoot an armed man if she was police. She was also still in this room after an attempt had been made on her life yesterday. Bi-Han could see the same thoughts flying round Nat's head.

"Sorry." Nat said quickly, "I'm ready to listen. Can we resolve this, Grace? If you're not here to kill me, then what do you want. And before you say anything, if you take over one more of Uncle Ken's businesses I'll probably be exiled to some tropical island, so I'd really rather you-"

"I'm taking over everything."

The apartment went quiet.

Grace lowered her weapons.

"Think about it. Uncle Ken has given you less than a quarter of his operations to run. You're one pawn among many to him. You're the son of the head of the Jade Fist Pact. If you worked under me, you could have everything, be my right hand man. Fuck Uncle Ken. I'll give you back all the businesses I took from you and more besides. Follow my direction, and I will make you someone Father cannot ignore."

Bi-Han could see the light in Nat's face. It was the same look Kuai got whenever Bi-Han gave him a small hint of praise. It was that look of being wanted.

"I assume you want more out of this." Nat said reluctantly.

"Your lackeys can all work under you, but I want Albert working directly under me."

"Albert is dead." said Ben inserted quietly. He still hadn't moved throughout this whole exchange, "And I stay with Nathaniel. Those are my direct orders."

"If you want a contract killer, have him." Teddy jerked his head at Bi-Han, "He's a fucking psycho."

Nat glared at Teddy.

Grace walked up to Bi-Han. She stood a good foot shorter than him and had to look up a long way to meet his eyes. Bi-Han still felt like he was being looked down on. She was standing too close. He could feel discomfort crawling through him. He hated people being close to him. Especially looking at him like that. He took a step back, onto Kuai's toe.

" _Ow!_ "

Grace's gun whipped out her holster.

"Don't shoot!" Bi-Han said in panicked Mandarin, spreading his arms back to form a bigger shield.

Grace kept her gun pointed, indicating with one end for him to show who stood beyond. Bi-Han leant fractionally out of the way.

Kuai peered round his brother's leg. Apart from Syun Li-heng's weapon in the hidden compartment under the bed, Kuai had never seen a gun this close before. It was strange to see one from this angle, with the hole the bullet comes out of pointed towards him. The woman holding the gun looked frightening. He couldn't see her eyes because the light was coming off her round glasses, making them look like two circles of green bug eyes. She had a big bomber jacket on and a prim skirt to her knees, and tights, and black shoes with white laces. What was even stranger than this lady, Kuai thought, was that Jia's mother was standing just behind her, with a look of slow dismay on her face.

"You'd bring a child to a fire fight," Syun spoke for the first time. She looked directly at Bi-Han as she did so.

"I brought the child, you brought the fire fight." Bi-Han said coldly. Kuai moved back behind Bi-Han's leg.

"Grace, for god's sake put the gun down. Do we kill kids now?" Nat reached for his beer left on the table and took a long draught. Grace slowly lowered her weapon. She put the safety back on and stuffed the gun in the waistband of her skirt. Syun still had her's pointed at Ray's head. Bi-Han could see Nat's eyes watching Syun.

Grace took the beer can out of her brother's hands and drank. She put it back in his hand half empty.

"Sure. A deal. Why not. Let's go talk details somewhere that doesn't stink of beer."

"How about my back room. Because that's about as far as I'm willing to walk without suspecting another ambush from you."

Grace shrugged at Nat's proposal and nodded in agreement.

"Keep your eyes on these losers," She said to Syun. "And before I step next door you can all lay your firearms out nicely where Syun can see them."

There was a rattle of metal and a showering of glares that went all round. An assortment of handguns were unceremoniously dumped on the carpet. Grace nodded in approval, and she and Nat stepped into the next room, sliding the door shut behind them.

The room went very quiet. Bi-Han could see Syun's eyes darting quickly, surveying the room full of wolves.

Someone said softly,

"We know what you are."

"So say it loud and clear." Syun said boldly. Bi-Han found himself admiring the calm she exuded in the face of this circle of hostility. "Be the first one to get a bullet to the head."

"Not quite police protocol." Teddy said lowly. Royce and Ray's eyes widened as they caught onto the situation. Royce spat on the floor at her feet. Syun spun to face him. Teddy took a step closer.

"What would I know about police protocol? Although I hear these days where Triad are involved, all police get is a desk job for a few months and paperwork. You're practically a hero if you splatter mob brains on the wall. Would be pretty bad for you guys if I was one." Syun's voice was calm, but her gun was swinging wildly as she tried to work out who of the group was the immediate threat.

Kuai felt his hand dropped by Bi-Han. He could see his brother's fingers twitching. There was a slight tilt to his head as he played through a series of calculations. Kuai had never seen Bi-Han kill anyone, but he knew enough of his body language to know where this was headed. Kuai swallowed, remembering his promise not to get in Bi-Han's way again.

"Ms Li-heng," His small voice cut through the wired tension, "Aren't you worried about Jia and the others? How can you come here where people want to kill you, when everyone is waiting for you at home?"

Syun Li-heng looked at Kuai with unreadable dark eyes. Bi-Han stopped stiffly in his tracks at Kuai's words. Nat's gang all watched, paused to see where this would go.

"Sometimes duty comes before comfort." Syun Li-heng grip tightened a little, "Not something you'd learn about from a brother like yours."

"You know nothing of my brother." Kuai stepped out of Bi-Han's shadow, "He taught me that family comes above all else. If you die here today, my friend's family dies here."

"Quiet. No one will die today if everyone keeps their calm." Syun steadied her gun with a second hand on the grip. Another round of quiet spiralled the apartment. A slight wind knocked at the long glass windows, and brought with it a smattering of rain, or perhaps sea spray.

"My brother will kill you." Kuai's voice was small but matter-of-fact. His bright blue serious eyes looked up at the woman. Her cheek bones were sharp, and her face lean. She had the look of something a long way from home. Kuai kept his voice level, "And this time I won't stop him."

The room stirred in response. Kuai wasn't really sure what he was doing. But he knew from a tugging feeling inside him that he had to at least try for Jia. He could see Bi-Han out the corner of his eye, like a taught bowstring, allowing Kuai this brief moment to do what he must before the hurricane was unleashed.

At that moment the door to the back room rolled open, making most present flinch. Relief immediately washed over Syun's face.

"You. Zho." Grace beckoned with a finger to Bi-Han. Nat stood just behind her, arms folded.

"Come."

Bi-Han moved with hackles raised and all the prowl of a beast parted from its wounded prey. Kuai followed him.

"Not the tiny version. He can stay put."

Bi-Han glared at Grace. His eyes flicked immediately to Nat, seeking silent intervention.

"Ah what the hell, Gracie, he's just a kid, let him listen. Jinhai's not even good for putting sentences together when his head's on worrying for his brother."

Grace looked unimpressed, but she allowed both brothers to join them in the back room.

"Nat says you're innovative with intimidation."

"Guilty as charged." Bi-han gave monotonously.

"But that he hasn't yet sent you anywhere as an assassin." Grace continued.

Bi-Han almost faltered before he caught himself. Of course Nat wouldn't admit Bi-Han had been sent to eliminate one of Grace's subordinates yesterday.

"I'll be frank with you," Grace snapped off her green glasses, to reveal calculating quick brown eyes, "I need a killer. An efficient, effective one, but also one with enough flair to really put the fear of god in my uncle's people. We're all family after all. The more people I can terrify into line, the less I have to have assassinated." She indicated with a thumb over one shoulder, "Standing in that room is one of the best assassins the family has, but he's gone and got himself under the eye of our father and tied hand-to-hand with my little brother." She gave Nat an ironic smile of barely hidden contempt. "I'm willing to see if you're all Nat's cracked you up to be. But I'm not interested in rescuing failures. Nat's got this whole little camaraderie charade going on with his subordinates, but with me its different. If you're efficient, you're a working cog in the system, if you're not up to scratch you're a loose end. Is this message getting over to you clear?"

Bi-Han nodded silently. It would be strange taking orders from a woman, but her manner was much more similar to the Lin Kuei hierarchy he was used to. And damn if an offer to kill with flair didn't sound like the best thing he'd been given in a long time.

"Good." Grace nodded, "Well that solves that little problem. I have a target in mind – not family, but an unrelated nuisance – I'll see how you perform, and if all goes well, you'll be the beautiful bow tying up this timely deal Nat and I have just agreed." From Nat's posture, Bi-Han rather suspected the deal proposition had been somewhat one-sided. "Nat tells me you have a mobile phone. I'll text you a place we can meet tomorrow and discuss the details of the hit. Questions?"

Bi-Han shook his head. Nat shook his head. Kuai stayed quiet, pretending to be invisible.

"And like that, we're all friends." She spread her arms, "So much easier than being enemies." Her open arms immediately became a threatening finger point that she turned on Nat, "Until this deal is sealed, you do nothing. And if I hear any more of my people have been maimed, you'll wish you'd run to father a long time ago."

Nat gave her a cold look but said nothing.

When they re-entered the room, Syun had a stubborn by strained look of defiance on her. As Grace exited the apartment, Syun backed out with her gun still pointed. She didn't turn until the door closed between them.

Silence followed.

Nat pulled out his cigarette case, stamped a cigarette on his jacket sleeve then lit it up. He took a long drag,

"Well, she's going to pay me much more than Uncle Ken ever did."

"What about the police woman?" Teddy hissed.

Nat shrugged,

"Let's see where this goes. It's all down to Jinhai now, the rising star of the Yeung dynasty." Nat took another pull on his cigarette, "No pressure, but if you screw this up, we're all in the shit."

"I won't fail." Bi-Han said flatly.

Everyone else probably assumed that was meant to be a promise, but Kuai knew it was meant as a fact. There wasn't a solo mission Bi-Han had done for the Lin Kuei that hadn't run smoother than silk. People dropped dead silently wherever he went as though he were simply an unstoppable force of nature. It felt oddly duplicitous to Kuai that his brother needed to prove himself to these people, when his very presence in his room was a testament to how quickly he could wheedle himself close to his assassination targets.

"Good." Nat said. He picked up his beer can and looked at the clock. It was a quarter to noon. "Ah fuck it, break out some whiskey. Might as well drink if my head already hurts from thinking on this nonsense. Damn but sometimes I wish I could have a fast car, a good drink, a full pack of smokes and leave the family business in the dust."

Bi-Han was under the impression Nat had already achieved all this, but he kept that observation to himself. He felt a small hand wrap around his index finger. He turned slightly to look at Kuai. His brave composure was cracking a little. His face was pale and he spoke in a small voice.

"Can we go home now?"

"Soon." Bi-Han reassured him in a low voice so as not to attract attention. Perhaps Sektor was right. Perhaps he had been a fool to take a child on such a high stakes assassination mission. Then Kuai gave him a grateful smile and he forgot all thought of that.

* * *

 **Author Note:** At the time of writing this chapter I was genuinely not sure if a large number of people were going to end up dead during the course of it. As it turned out - everyone is still alive! For now. Crisis + Bi-Han + tiny Kuai in the room= panic mode or sudden death mode. So I'm as surprised as everyone else that this went down peacefully. Now we get to see some Bi-Han working for Grace :)


	20. In My Essence

_****Gore Warning for this chapter**  
**_

* * *

Bi-Han picked Kuai up and put him on the kitchen table.

"Don't pick me up! You can't make yourself seem more right just by being bigger and throwing your weight around!"

Bi-Han sighed and folded his arms,

"Are you ready to talk about this sensibly?"

"I don't want you to go with that lady! At least stay with Uncle Nat, he looks after the people working with him!"

"I go where I need to go, Kuai, not where is safe. She's closer to the top of the family, so I will go and work for her."

"But Bi-Han-"

Bi-Han set a gentle hand on Kuai's head. Kuai's eyes were bright and rife with emotion and struggle. Kuai swallowed and sucked all his feelings in to try and be the brave emotionless warrior Bi-Han always managed to be.

"Can't you do your mission _and_ be safe? You're always telling me I should be wary and remember self-presa-… self-prevera-..."

"Self-preservation. Yes, Kuai. But there's being careful and there's running away."

"It wouldn't be running away to-" Kuai stopped when he saw his brother's eyes turn from patient to irritable. Kuai looked down, legs dangling off the table. His lower lip trembled but he managed to keep from making any noise. He breathed in and out slowly, trying to look less like an upset child. When he looked up, his breath was even again, though his voice was small, "If you die I'll be stuck here all alone in Hong Kong. Or worse have to go back home to the Lin Kuei and do it all without you."

" _Idiot._ " Bi-Han snapped with surprising sharpness, perhaps betraying some of his own fears, "As if I would let that happen to you. Have a little faith."

Kuai sighed again. It was a long shuddering sigh, like the kind that comes with trying not to cry.

"Will I have to go back to that school and just keep pretending everything's normal?"

Bi-Han pulled out the mobile phone from his pocket and placed it on the table gingerly as though it might explode,

"Everything _is_ normal. As normal as it's ever been. I don't get what the big deal is, Kuai. I'm undercover in the Triads, right where I'm meant to be and right where I've been for the last few weeks. It was inevitable that the rabbit hole would go deeper." He prodded a button on the phone with an inexperienced finger. He jerked back when it made a noise.

Kuai reached for the phone,

"Let me help."

"You don't know shit about that technology either." Bi-Han said defensively.

"I saw some kids at school use them. Look, they're like tiny rubbish computers."

"Computers..."

"You _do_ know what one of them is, right?" Kuai looked at his brother incredulously.

"Of course." Bi-Han snapped. "...I just didn't know computers could get that small."

"It's not a proper computer, Bi-Han. But it does have words on it."

"Words? On a telephone? What's the fucking point in that, I want to hear the words, not see them typed out at the speed of donkey cart."

Kuai fumbled with a few buttons, then frowned.

"Oh, you're getting a call." He raised the screen up to Bi-Han so he could see.

"What? But it's not ringing? Are you sure? Give that here." He snatched the phone away.

"I think it's on silent. Bi-Han, give it back, I'll help you answer it."

"Fuck off, I can answer a phone." He pressed a button and held the small device to his ear. "HELLO?" He clapped a hand to his other ear and walked around the kitchen table, "HELLO?"

"Bi-Han, let me help y-"

Bi-Han put a middle finger up at him to shut him up. Kuai sighed. Bi-Han pulled the phone away from his ear a few moments later.

"No one was there."

Kuai held out his hand. Bi-Han dropped the phone into his outstretched palm with irritated reluctance. Kuai inspected it for a moment.

"You cut them off. The green button is for 'hello', Bi-Han. The red one is stop. Like traffic lights."

"Shut up, smart mouth, all the buttons are so small, I don't even know which one I pressed. What the hell was wrong with just picking the phone off the hook. I will never understand why people have to complicate life so much. Like Sektor and his idiot obsession with trying to mount firearms to his armour. For all the times when a silent assassination requires an explosion the size of a house, no doubt."

"I think he tries to improve his weapons because he's sad he doesn't have ice like you."

"You and your psychology degree, is that?"

"What's a psy-"

"Nevermind. Get off the table, I'm going to make some food."

"But you put me on the table in the fi-"

"And answer that telephone if it rings again. I probably just hung up on the daughter of the Jade Fist Pact boss." Bi-Han ran a hand back through his hair. He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, then opened them, plucked an onion from a basket on the counter and, with a lot more attention and care, selected a knife. He hacked into the onion with violent short burst movements that made Kuai feel a little anxious.

"Are you angry?"

"No. Just cutting an onion."

"No one cuts onions like that."

"Well I do! Now, shut up and-"

"The phone's ringing again."

Bi-Han dived for it, but Kuai got their first, and pressed the green button. He offered it to Bi-Han.

"HELLO?"

Kuai put a palm to his face.

"Yes, sorry, sir." Bi-Han frowned at his own Cantonese, "Is 'sir' right? OK. Fine. Whatever you like. Yes. As you wish. Alright." He pulled the phone away from his ear, then listened again when he heard an extra noise, "Yes. Bye." His finger hovered above an array of buttons. Kuai held out a hand, offering to to help. Bi-Han glared at the phone and pressed all the buttons. The call terminated with a series of sporadic beeps.

"And now I suppose I have to carry this around, with a record of my incriminating phonecalls in my pocket. Amateurs."

"Was it the Yeung lady?"

"She wants to meet tomorrow morning. So you'll be back at school tomorrow." Bi-Han frowned at Kuai's glum face, "I thought you liked school. Is someone bothering you there?" He caught up with his own accusation, "If yes, tell me who right now!"

"No, Bi-Han. It's fine. I was more worried about my friend who's mother you tried to murder. If she's even still at school, she won't want to speak to me again."

"So make a new friend. You seem good at that anyway."

"I'm not good at it Bi-Han, it took me over a month to make that friend. I'm just better at it than you because you're so rude to everyone and do things like murdering people or glaring at them or both."

"Murder is my job, and glaring is a perfectly acceptable form of communication."

"This is why you have no friends."

Bi-Han ruffled Kuai's hair hard and made it stick up all over the place.

"Aren't you my friend, Kuai?"

Kuai huffed sulkily, but was secretly pleased inside. He liked the idea of being called a friend. It sounded more important and special than just being a little brother.

The next morning, Bi-Han wound his way up one of the high streets in town. Only morning shops were open – cafes that filled the air with coffee, and bookshops, and prim clothes stores. The fires in portable street-stalls were just being lit. Their black grills were beginning to steam and smoke, ready for a batch of skewered fishballs, or bouncing roast chestnuts, or sizzling egg waffles. Bi-Han had memorised the route he needed to take after meticulously looking everything up on maps he had back in the apartment. He could feel a tight tension in his chest. It was not unlike the tension he felt on being summoned to the Grandmaster, knowing that a difficult mission had just been contracted of the Lin Kuei. His lungs would be aflutter with one part aloof pride that he was the first point of call, and one part concern that this might be the mission that finally took him from this world, and left Kuai alone.

He turned down a backstreet. Immediately the bright shiny facade of the street was cut away into raw plumbing, half cracked paint, uncollected bins, and a veritable library of graffiti calling cards. His eyes searched the jumbled of spray paint as he walked, hunting out a number of tags indicating territory that belonged to the Jade Fist Pact. The clan had been started nearly a hundred years ago by conservative factions concerned by the erosion of traditional values. Clans and gangs had risen in fallen in Hong Kong, many with roots in protecting workers and seizing back wealth as oligarchs and the merchants of the world sought to exploit one of the fasted growing port cities on the globe. The Jade Fist Pact had had to forgo some of its more traditional attachments of recent in an attempt to keep up with the boom in numbers sported by its more popular rivals. The main structure of the clan was still family based, even if they'd had to start letting in riff-raff like Bi-Han and Syun Li-heng. Bi-Han smiled internally. The Lin Kuei had long ago decided that loyalty and secrecy were far more important than size in numbers. The Lin Kuei had consequently yet to be infiltrated, whereas the Yeung family's grip over the Jade Fist Pact looked like, between assassin and possible city police infiltration, it was nearing the end of its one-hundred years rule.

He walked up the alleyway and up a narrow flight of stone steps. The steps opened onto a wide plaza. It was quiet and from the slant of the dimmed out signs, it looked like this part of town was usually lit up at night, not morning. He scanned the doorways until he found one that matched the description Grace Yeung had given him over the phone. He hovered in the doorway fist raised to knock. He liked to scout buildings out before entering them – check for entrances and exits, size, age, the usual clientele. Going in blind made him feel anxious. But he couldn't risk being seen by security cameras, he needed to play the role expected of him. Here he must be Jinhai Zho and not Sub-Zero. He knocked once. The door opened within a few seconds.

Beyond was a surprisingly busy corridor. It was a little on the narrow side, with clean white paper and wooden slat doors, and populated by characters all looking busy but in a relaxed, non-chalant fashion. Bi-Han stepped through the doorway slowly, like a portal to another world. He at once felt out-of-place and out of his essence. People walked past him and across him and hovered in doorways. Some were women and some were men and some were in between. They all wore choice clothes and looked like they cared for their appearance, but in not at all a uniform way. One person whose gender Bi-Han could not place had a short, but slightly lopsided quiff of green hair, and eyelids painted to sparkle in slight purple, and two other people walked arm in arm, intent and purposeful, but also languid and at ease. Some people had gotten themselves into full tight looking body suits, whilst others seemed to be wearing almost nothing at all. Bi-Han immediately felt self-conscious and unsure how to act.

"Lost, darling?" Someone with a low voice and vibrant winged purple eye make-up smiled at him kindly.

"Uh..." Bi-Han was taken aback, "I'm… meant to speak to Ms Yeung."

"Ah, the boss." The stranger said fondly, "All the way to the end of this corridor and right. Third door on the right."

Bi-Han nodded a curt thanks. He stepped like a dancer in and out of the people mulling about the hall, trying to avoid being touched. A few people smiled, amused by his discomfort, but said nothing. Bi-Han knocked quickly when he reached the described door. He hunched his shoulders to get out of the way of two willowy men with long earings that flashed in the low light of orange wall lamps. Bi-Han almost fell into the room when he heard the summon to enter. He arrived at Grace Yeung's desk flustered and uncomfortable and not at all how he had intended to. She looked up at him from a huge inch thick file, pushing her green glasses down her nose and looking over them at him.

"Zho." She said matter-or-factly.

Bi-Han had no idea what to say. Instead he just glanced behind him then back at her.

"Never been inside a brothel before?"

He shook his head negatively and stayed silent.

"Neither had I when my father gave me them to run. He seemed to think that was all a woman might be good for."

Bi-han said nothing.

"Well, turns out I am good at running them. I run the most successful prostitution houses on Hong Kong Island. Want to know my secret?"

Bi-han felt way out of his depth. He stayed quiet as that had worked in his favour so far.

"Respect, and being a good businesswoman. I keep tight rules and an extremely strict code on what is tolerated. There's no violence, no dubious consent, no odd fantasies. And workers come from all over the city to come to my houses where they know they'll be respected. They value it so highly, I can pay them less, and I can afford to be picky, so I have top quality workers. I make the place look top class, and charge clients three times as much as they would the next whore house. I make a fucking killing. And my people are loyal. What do you think?"

She leant back and surveyed him over steepled fingers. He nodded awkwardly,

"Sounds like it's working for you." He said shortly.

"Capitalism is working for me, Zho. But my father's antiquated ideals are not. Now the real reason question, are you going to work for me, or are you just going to be another disappointment, like my family."

Bi-Han stared at her. He still felt like a fish floundering out of water.

"I can hurt people and kill people. That's all." _The world's shortest_ _résumé_ , he thought.

She smiled, and for once it didn't seem like a predator's smile,

"And that's all I want you for. Everyone has their place and purpose." Her eyes sought out the far wall, which Bi-Han saw now had a bookcase filled with volumes. Unlike Nathaniel's bookcase, they looked worn and well-read. "My father has made a careful point of keeping my part of the family unarmed and with limited means to establish itself militarily." _A wise decision_ , Bi-Han thought. "I need an enforcer, but in a city like Hong Kong, every killer has ties, allegiances, people they are more loyal to." I _f you only knew the half of it_ , Bi-Han's thoughts interjected again, though he kept a careful silence and expression, "Albert was part of the private wing of hitmen who only answer to my father. Taking him from Nathaniel was to be my prize fruit. But now all I have is you, Zho."

"Sorry to disappoint before I've even started." Bi-Han grated before he could stop himself. Only afterwards did he consider that perhaps showing some respect might have been more tactful. Grace merely raised her eyebrows.

"Well, I like to give everyone a chance to prove themselves. The trash tend to weed themselves out." She stood and moved over to the bookcase, fingers tracing for something. Bi-Han watched her. She seemed content to let silence hang, and gave an air of measured control to the room. She reminded him in a lot of ways of Nathaniel.

"Albert..." He said carefully, "Did he change his name to Ben?" He knew he was treading on rocky ground. She turned and looked at him sharply. "Of all of Nathaniel's people, he's the only one who strikes me as the killer you describe."

She scrutinised him for a moment, then nodded slowly,

"You have good instincts. Albert changed his name after he was released from a Singapore prison. There were complications with him keeping his old identity." She moved away from the bookshelf and sat on the edge of her desk and folded her arms, "Notice anything else about him? Does he seem like his loyalty is to Nat or to our father?"

He shook his head, genuinely disappointed that he couldn't give her a more satisfactory answer,

"He keeps himself to himself. He's clearly there under orders, but I couldn't say if his loyalty extended beyond that to Nathaniel personally."

"Pity." Grace stood again and returned to the bookshelf with her back to him. Her silence drew on again. This time Bi-Han broke it.

"Is there someone you want me to kill?"

"Mm." A thin grey cover book was in her hand with lone cursive silver script on the cover that read _Il Principe._ "Yes. A small time arms dealer on the dock who's been giving my uncle a bit of trouble. My uncle imports all drugs sold by the clan. He's meant to report any external mishaps to another branch of the family, but that old stickler _pride_ is holding him back. Killing this nuisance arms dealer will make my uncle more complacent. And if you screw it up I can have you shot and no one's any the wiser. So a win-win for me."

Bi-Han took her bluntness at face-value. It was unlikely the Lin Kuei would ever kill him for failing a mission – they had expended too many resources in him for that, but Bi-Han was still no stranger to high stakes repercussions. He bowed his head,

"As you wish."

She pulled out a notepad. Tucked inside it was a photograph that she handed to Bi-Han. A robust looking man stood on the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge with his arm around a younger man, beard still fluffy on his chin. She clacked a fingernail on the older man. Herman Mah. You'll find him at the docks here," she pointed at an address below the name, "Or at his home address here," she pointed at another address beneath that. Bi-Han took the paper and nodded.

"How should it be done. Accident? Or as a message? Or just quickly."

"Surprise me." She gave a cold smile and Bi-Han tried not to match it with one of his own. She sat back in her seat and put her trainers up on the desk. She pushed her green glasses up her nose and opened her thin grey reading book.

"Am I dismissed?"

She nodded but did not look up. Bi-Han bowed once and left. He felt more comfortable as he walked back through the corridor. In knowing his place and purpose, all things settled into familiar patterns.

The dockyard was lit with floodlights. Shipping containers were stacked as megolith walls of corrugated iron, bright colours dimmed by the lull of evening. Cranes were powering down and workers were bidding each other good night, clapping each other on the back and swinging florescent vests over one shoulder. Bi-Han sat crouched on a stack of containers. He was dressed in all black, with a hood over his head and a material mask over his lower face. He wasn't meant to look Lin Kuei, but old habits died hard when it came to concealing identity. He regarded the dockyard below with an even, practised gaze. He could just scout this evening, and do the kill another night. He regretted not having had enough time to tell Kuai he'd be late, but not quite enough to do anything about it.

He jumped the long distance to the ground, landing noiselessly. He stepped in and out of shadows, dodging pools of lights. He tilted his head, catching stray wisps of conversation on the wind. He moved into the darkness and stood with his back to a shipping crate. Two workmen walked by, chatting about what meal they might go home to, and how they should meet at the weekend to catch some sport on the television. Bi-Han watched them with disinterest, failing to understand even this minute snatch of their lives. He waited until they past then continued on.

From up high he had caught a glance of a pre-fab building built only on the ground floor. It had still been lit at this time of night, so Bi-Han was hoping it might serve some managerial purpose. He wound his way in its direction now. He moved around the sentinel giant crates and turned a corner. The building he sought stood lone in the shadow of the dockyard stacks. It exuded a soft orange glow that sent striped patterns up the corrugated containers. He made his way to it and knelt on one knee below a window. He picked out footsteps on stairs. He frowned. Perhaps there was a would be foolish to run in without fully checking that out. He put that to the back of his mind for now. There were two sets of footsteps, one heavy and sedate, the other quicker – hither and thither – agitated or perhaps irritated.

"Why must you always be so stubborn! This pettiness is beneath our true reach and capability!" A young man's voice became louder as he came closer. Bi-Han matched this voice to the quicker footsteps.

"Stan, take a seat." A second voice was accompanied by a sigh and the creak of a chair.

"I don't want to _take a seat._ The Black Dragon could be real friends, Father. They could be the allies we need to really be somebody in Hong Kong. No more scuttling around taking the odd scrap from the Jade Fist Pact!"

"The scraps we take with our own hand are worth ten times what we are given by a foreign clan, Stanley. You take a gift from another man, you are owned by him."

"No, Father, you're just old-fashioned! If a man comes to you saying he'll give you the firearms you need to blow a hole the size of the moon in your enemies-"

"We don't need a hole the size of the moon, Stan. We need just need a crack we can exploit."

"Ok, but you haven't seen what they're offering! I've never seen anything like it, it's out of this world, Father, they-"

"-would not freely give so great a prize to people as small fry as us. So we ought to suspect treachery. Stanley, this is the end of this conversation. Go home and help your sister prepare dinner."

Bi-Han dared a peek over the sill. He pulled out the photograph Grace had given him and matched the faces of his target and son to the two occupants. He ducked back down when he heard young man, Stanley, kick something in a rage. The young man stormed out of the building. Bi-Han sidestepped round to a further wall. He heard the door slam shut behind Stanley and watched him stride furiously out across the dockyard. His lone irate figure moved in and out of floodlit pools. Bi-Han edged back to the window and glanced in. The older man had vanished. Bi-Han frowned. He waited to see if the man was hidden from this vantage point. After a few minutes when he had not reappeared, Bi-Han slipped round the back of the house and came up to peer in the window the other side. Having checked all corners of the room, and made sure it was empty, he pulled open a window with a finger and vaulted in silently. The room had a desk and grey filing cabinets. A chalkboard was on the wall with names and shifts and numbers set out in a table. He quickly memorised the information; it would be useful for planning the assassination.

Bi-Han's eyes fell on an off-colour panel of wood in the floor, half hidden by the desk. He moved and saw an open trapdoor leading down below. Red rails framed a steel staircase. Bi-Han knelt, and poked his head upside down into the room below. It looked to be an extended warehouse, with floor-to-ceiling girdered racks filled with crates. The underground warehouse was perhaps double the size of cabin above. _Enough to conceal more people_ , Bi-Han thought reluctantly. This would be an ideal moment to finish up the reconnaissance mission. He'd scouted out the area, he'd memorised shift patterns for tomorrow, and he could likely come back any evening and find the shift patterns for the next day on the chalkboard. With this much information he could plan an immaculate assassination for any day this week. Choose the weather he liked, the people he wanted to avoid, the precise method, the place – it was a good night's haul. A good time to call it a day. His eyes twinkled.

He gripped the floor where it opened and swung into the basement. He somersaulted and cleared the staircase. His feet landed with a faint tap on the concrete. He immediately stepped into the shadows.

"Someone there?"

Bi-Han held his breath. There was silence. After a minute, there was a sound of a crate opening, and something heavy being lifted out. Then the familiar click of ammunition being fed into a firearm. Bi-Han's teeth set together behind his mask.

"Come out nice and slowly. Don't make me mow this whole room down with a minigun."

The man was more perceptive than Bi-Han anticipated. Footsteps came closer. The steel shelves still blocked his view, but Bi-Han could place his target by sound. It would be about four seconds before he met that gun face-to-face with his back to a dead end. The gun clicked again as the safety came off the weapon. A gun that could shoot fast rounds in a room this small with limited places to hide. This wasn't Bi-Han's most careful operation by a long shot.

"Alright!" Bi-Han spoke up. He pulled his hood down and mask off. He stepped tentatively into the light with his hands up, "Don't shoot!"

Bi-Han came almost face to face with the minigun nozzle. Herman Mah was a sturdy-built man, with a tough look in his eye, a smart shirt that had seen a full-day's work.

"You Jade Fist Pact?" He asked, gun still pointed Bi-Han's way.

"Uh huh." Bi-Han squinted in the light, raising one of his hands a little further to shade from the bright bulb.

"They're sending kids to do their dirty work now? You don't look a day over eighteen. How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

The older man shook his head in distaste, gun still very much live in his hands,

"God help us that this is what this island's coming to."

"I just do what I have to," Bi-Han gave. His shoulder's were defensive and his words were genuine, "They asked me to kill you. All I care about is protecting myself and my little brother." One of his surrendering palms reached out a little further. "Well, that… and…-" He grasped the minigun nozzle in his hand.

"Let go!" The dockworker snapped. "You might be a kid, but don't think for a goddamn moment I won't-"

"Killing." Said Bi-Han softly. He looked down the gun at Herman Mah. "I really love killing people."

The older man pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. He stared at the gun, then at Bi-Han in confusion. He gasped suddenly when the metal near his fingers became ice cold. He stared as the mechanisms of the gun shuddered under the protest of the strain. They were collecting shards of frost.

"What-?" The dockworker started. He let go as the gun grip became unbearably cold, but the gun did not fall from his grasp. He stared as his fingers trembled and seized with the cold, sticking to the gun – freezing to the grip. Bi-Han watched his horror and surprise with interest.

"Do you know what bothers me most, working with the Jade Fist Pact?" Bi-Han spoke calmly.

The man was looking at him like he was a lunatic. His limbs had seized, and his body was shuddering with paralytic cold. Bi-Han reached a hand and cupped the back of the older man's head, as if comforting him.

"What bothers me most, is having to pretend I'm not good at killing people."

He gripped the man's neck, where the bone was brittle and the flesh was already cleaving from it in the bitter cold. He let the cold run deep through his palm, urging it into the skin, the muscle, the bone. He gave a calm sigh, then tore the man's neck suddenly upwards, eyes flashing in a mad wrench of power. The spine and head came clear out of the body in a shuddering violent mass of twisting gore. A thick mist of part frozen blood burst into the air. Bi-Han stood for a moment, blood falling like an uncertain red snow flurry all about him. The decapitated head of his target was still held high in one hand, spine twitching like a macabre trailing tail. The body took a few seconds to drop, still half frozen in place. It fell with dull thud, all sagging weight and lifeless. Bi-Han watched it slowly began to thaw. As it did, blood began to run in earnest. It was thick and vibrant red, like slow, spilt wine. Bi-Han looked into the surprised sightless eyes of his victim. He looked down at the mess he'd made. The Grandmaster would have been appalled at his risk-taking and spontaneity. _Interesting,_ he thought, _didn't know I could do that._ Knowing he could pull a man's spine out, still wouldn't have been enough to spare him from punitive Lin Kuei repercussions for rash, disproportionate behaviour. It was a good thing this kill wasn't for the Lin Kuei. He walked slowly back up the steel steps carrying his prize. He laid the head and spine down tenderly on the desk in the main cabin. He checked the clock on the wall. It was still early. He could get back and make dinner for Kuai after all. He turned off the desk light, plunging the cabin into darkness.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Yeah. That's all I got to say really. Bit of a messed up guy I guess?


	21. To Save Those We Love

Jia hadn't been back to school in two days. At first Kuai had been thinking out how to explain to her, somehow, that this wasn't a betrayal. It wasn't betrayal that she had confided her secrets to him, whilst he had kept all his from her. His mind kept going over what he would say: how he would explain that he never lied; that although Bi-Han had turned up to murder her mother there was more to Bi-Han than that; that he could be as good an older brother as Jia's if someone just gave him the chance… But now that she'd been away from school for so long, his thoughts had turned practical. She wasn't safe. Jai's whole family wasn't safe. And he might be able to help them move before… before it was too late. Kuai sat through morning period on the second day. If he couldn't meet Jia at school to warn her, he would just have to get creative.

He put his hand up. It was Mr Martin's history lesson. They were studying the cultural heritage of ancient Chinese provinces. Kuai had got lost fifteen minutes ago when Mr Martin used a string of English words Kuai couldn't get his head round.

"Yes, Tao? Got something to add to the class?"

"May I be excused to go to the bathroom, Mr Martin." He spoke it in impeccable English, which he was secretly very proud of.

"Break times are for using the bathroom, aren't they, Tao. It's not really a break time now, is it."

Kuai looked at him inscrutably.

"Is Tao going to pee his pants. Ew let him go if he is!" Nianzu laughed cruelly from across the class room. Kuai glared at him. Sometimes he really wished he hadn't promised Bi-Han on day one not to go looking for fights. No one in this school could fight as well as him. There had been so many good missed opportunities.

Mr Martin gave Nianzu a look,

"Alright Tao, but first can you name for me one significant cultural place of heritage in the Henan Province. The Henan Province holds the greatest number of cultural artefacts in all China. Not only is it rich with art and fine craftsmanship, but some of the most important buildings in-"

"The Shaolin Temple. Can I go now?"

Mr Martin frowned at Tao. His eyes narrowed. Then he nodded.

"Five minutes. And let's not make a habit of this, Tao."

Kuai stared at him, wondering how one stopped one's bladder from working on a habitual basis. He got up, grabbed his satchel and walked out quickly before Mr Martin could change his mind. As soon as he got into the corridor, he walked five paces away from the door, stood on tip-toe, unlatched a window, jumped up, shimmied through and slipped out into the undergrowth beyond.

The school had a high metal black iron fence, but Jia had shown Kuai a place where the bars were contorted with time and left enough wriggle room for a lithe, determined student to squeeze out. His heart sunk at the thought of Jia. He remembered her face when she saw Bi-Han on the school bus. Kuai had never seen anyone look at his brother like that, not even the young Lin Kuei who were given him as a teacher back at the Temple. And they knew his exploits as Sub-Zero. Jia had been white with terror. _Because she doesn't know Bi-Han like I do,_ Kuai thought, _She doesn't know all the things he does silently just for those he cares about. He hides it all with his serious face and makes cold jokes about it, but inside he gives up so much for me. He hides so much. People shouldn't just judge him on the surface things he does._

"He's not a monster."

He blinked, having accidentally said this last thought out loud. Only the trees on the steep bank behind the school heard him. He looked down the hillside. The school was set out like strange concrete and red tile steps down to the road. The grey towers of the city were beyond that, and further still the dull steel blue of the sea. It was a long way without a bus to get to Jia's house, and the roads were thick with heavy traffic. He looked up, the sun was visible bright and soft through the dappled green foliage. He was sure he could find the hidden footpaths up into the hills from here. There might be a path that came round to the back of the estate Jia lived on.

Kuai spent the next two hours hiking the hills of the island. He liked the warm sun on his neck. It made the path a dusty gold and even the shadows were warmer shades of teal and evergreen. The light never got this soft back home. Everything around the Temple was in sharp relief. The air was always brisk, the shadows always a stark contrast to bright severe light. Nothing happened at the Temple in half-measures. He looked at his feet when he thought of the Temple. Some days when he was training at the Temple he had dreamed he could be anywhere and anyone else at all. Just something the other side of the cold hard walls, even a blade of grass that could just be, and not always strive, always compete, always look over one's shoulder. Kuai was good at striving to be better. But he wasn't good at competing. When someone was beaten, he found himself always reaching to stand them back up, when someone was frightened, he found himself trying to comfort them with a smile, and no amount of punishment could seem to extract these traits from him. Bi-Han had personally intervened on a number of occasions.

He recalled one where he had reached out a hand to touch a fellow student with a thick purple bruise on their cheek. Kuai had been struggling with cryomancy lessons all day, but in that moment it had been so easy. He had used ice to dull the pain in the student's jaw, and saw the gratitude in their tear-stained eyes. With perfect measured control, he had eased a little of that sting. He had been in big trouble for that. There had even been a teacher present. And Bi-Han who had been (im-?)patiently trying to teach him cryomancy had of course stepped in and taken the blame. Kuai tried to recall what Bi-Han had said. He had apologised. And said that as the one teaching the cryomancy lesson, his brother's failure was on him, the poor tutor. Kuai hadn't seen him for a day after that. And when he had returned he was stiff, like he always was when hiding physical pain. He had been cold too, with eyes that bordered on hatred. Kuai had been afraid. He was always afraid when Bi-Han was angry. But he had somehow known, even thought he was much smaller than he was now, that the hatred wasn't really for him, and neither was the anger. And that made everything easier. Bi-Han made things easier. Well, Bi-Han and Tomas.

If Bi-Han was the shield that kept Kuai alive, Tomas was the laughter that made being alive fun. He had mastered his abilities much quicker than Kuai and not at all the way their masters were wanted him to. Their sifus would demand he focus on lethal techniques unique to his special abilities. They asked him to cook a man's skull using his bare hands. Tomas couldn't do that yet, but he could stack smoke clouds into shapes, like rude finger gestures at Sektor that vanished when the crime was to be corroborated. They asked Tomas to suffocate a man by pouring smoke into his lungs. Tomas couldn't do that yet either, but he could vanish from under your grip if you tried to hold him down to punish him. Of course, in the long term, there was always a way to punish someone. Tomas had managed to wheedle himself under the wings of Bi-Han's discriminatory compassion and protection. There were limits to Bi-Han's patience on this front, but certainly before matters became officially punitive, Bi-Han did a lot to deflect the blame Tomas (usually rightly) received.

 _Tomas has been alone for so long now._ Kuai wished he could even say a few words to him. Or just hear him. He could hear lots of things in Tomas's voice. He wasn't as good as Bi-Han at hiding things that hurt him. Kuai wondered if his friend would be the same laughing person that he had left behind.

Jia was his friend now too. Not like Tomas was, but she was still someone he wanted to help. Tomas might be unhappy, but right now Jia was in danger for her life. Kuai steeled himself and strode down from the hills into towers of the estate. Without Jia to guide him he felt like an intruder, trespassing into a world that was all steel and concrete and lives so different to anything a Lin Kuei could ever understand. The red tablecloth hung out by Jia's neighbour wasn't visible today, but Kuai still managed to retrace their steps. He didn't understand how to make the lift work, so he climbed the stairs all sixteen stories up. When he got to the top he paused to collect his breath. He'd been so preoccupied thinking of the past and finding his way, that now he was here, he was not sure what he wanted to say. He drew himself up. That would not stop him. All the mattered was trying to make Jia understand.

Jia wasn't in. But her mother was.

Syun Li-heng stared down at Kuai with undisguised malice in her eyes. The door was only opened a fraction, as if she expected Kuai to be the bait before an advance party of assassins. Kuai gave her an awkward smile.

"Ms Li-heng." He said cordially.

"Come to finish what your brother started?" She looked down at him.

He shook his head quickly,

"I wanted to talk to Jia..."

"You won't be speaking to my daughter any more."

"Ms Li-heng, don't you understand your family is in danger? I don't understand why you aren't hiding."

She merely raised an eyebrow and looked like she was about to shut the door. Kuai put his hand on the door to stop her.

"Ms Li-heng, please. If there's a problem finding somewhere for your family to go – I thought about this – you could try and get onto the Block Three roster to find a replacement house! They're pulling Block Three down, and they're finding homes for so many people, couldn't you try and get your family onto that program?"

Her expression was still a blank slate. Her eyes were dark and unforgiving.

"Please think about it," He said desperately, "Please, for Jia and the others… My brother knows about you being…" He glanced about them. Syun Li-heng glanced around too, then grabbed Kuai by the shoulder and pulled him into the flat. She shut the door behind him. "...Police" Kuai finished.

"Hush." She snapped and glowered at him. It made her look like Jia, Kuai thought.

"The only reason no one has acted on it yet is because of all this infighting. My brother will tell the new lady he works for about you as soon as he's confident she will keep him around. Probably he'll do one mission for her to prove himself, then he'll get straight on telling her. The sooner he tells her the more loyal he will appear. You can't just keep something like this a secret from your boss and spill it out at a moment that suits you!"

"Quite in the know for a child."

Kuai looked away. He knew all about keeping secrets and Bi-Han's chosen methods for breaking sensitive information to his superiors. He saw it most weeks at the Temple. Bi-Han worked on a tried and tested method of supplementing dubious news with a show of loyalty and success. He waited until someone was enamoured with his actions before quietly slipping in word of a problem. He could make confiding bad news seem like an act of trust. Kuai looked up at Syun,

"I just want to help. But I don't know how to."

Jia's mother narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. She sat down on the edge of an armchair that was filled with bric-a-brac and coats that wouldn't fit on the coat stand.

"Do you know what the word 'testimony' means?"

Kuai shook his head slowly.

"It's when you stand in a court room and promise to tell the truth about things that bad people have done."

"I can't do that." Kuai said quickly.

"It would be the right thing to do." Jia's mother was calm.

"He's my brother." Kuai said simply.

"He works for the Triads. As a hitman. An assassin."

Kuai swallowed.

Ms Li-heng folded her arms, and kept her unwavering stare on him,

"If what you say is right about your brother informing his new boss after a mission, then there is little time. He was given a mission yesterday. I need you to think about doing the right thing, Tao – is it? I can help Jia and my family by finishing my undercover work. Witness testimony to homicide committed on the orders of the Yeung dynasty will be enough to put a large number of them behind bars. It's not as big a sting as I hoped, but under the circumstances, it's good enough."

Kuai didn't understand all of what she was saying, but he kept shaking his head.

"Tao," Syun Li-heng said seriously. "You're brother is a criminal. He is working for bad people. This needs to end. You have the power to put a stop to this. You can help Jia. Don't you want her to be safe?"

Kuai was confused, he thought those were his lines. He had had been trying to tell Jia's mother to protect her family… what did this have to do with him?

"The Block Three eviction…" He started, trying to recall the main points of his argument again.

"Is a bureaucratic nightmare that will take years to complete. We have hours, Tao. Do you want Jia to be safe?"

Kuai nodded, uncertainly.

"Then come with me. I'll take you down to the station. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. But we can explain what we'll need from you, and you can decide then if you want to save Jia."

"I don't understand..." Kuai said slowly, "My brother's not anyone important in the Triads. Hearing about the things he's done won't change anything, he's barely been involved at all. How can this help Jia? Can't you just find somewhere safe for her to hide?"

"There is nowhere to hide in Hong Kong, Tao."

Kuai found himself sitting in the back seat of a bumpy car rising down to the police station. He wasn't even quite sure when or if he had agreed to do so. He was agitated and a little afraid.

The police precinct was busy. They had brought Jia's mother in in cuffs. She had made a show of punching the wing mirror of a police car and spitting, and they had hauled her roughly inside, motioning for Kuai to follow. Kuai supposed this was to keep her cover in case someone was watching. They only uncuffed her in a private office at the back where the blinds were drawn down. Kuai squinted through the blinds trying to get a look at a big bald tattooed man who two officers were having trouble trying to wrestle into a chair.

The policeman who had uncuffed Jia's mother was a tall friendly looking man in a smart uniform.

"Did you have to smash that wing mirror, Syun? You know what our budget's like at the minute. Eurgh." The young police officer sighed. He brought out a clipboard and pen and smiled at Kuai. "Alright young man, the first thing I need to know is the name, address, and telephone number of your legal guardian."

"Can't call his guardian." Syun Li-heng put in, rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had been. "The boy is testifying against him."

Kuai opened his mouth to protest, since he hadn't agreed to testify _anything_ yet. The policeman spoke before Kuai could,

"What the hell, Syun, you want me to pull the paperwork for interrogating an unaccompanied minor in less than," He checked his watch, "Three hours?"

"Better skip some protocol."

"Ha ha," the man said humourlessly, "Some of us are on a career ladder going somewhere-"

"You'll get there a lot faster if you help bring down the Jade Fist Pact. Find someone who can stand-in and speak on his behalf. Any social workers about we can pull in?"

"Yeah, they specialise in drug rehabilitation and homeless cases, what were you thinking springing this on me last minute?"

"That'll do, he's a kid not an alien. Same human rights apply."

"Excuse me." Kuai put in, his expression stormy, "Excuse me but what are you talking about. I didn't agree to test-… test anything against anyone."

"Not an alien. Right." The policeman gave Syun a look then opened the office door. "Stay here, the last thing we need is for the whole station to see you."

The door closed behind him and the dim rumble of conversation faded away.

"Look, Tao-" Jia's mother started.

"I'm not looking at anything! And I didn't say I'd say anything against B- my brother!" If Jia's mother noticed that slip, she didn't mention it. Kuai was starting to get agitated. Even by being here, he was worried he might ruin something for Bi-Han's mission. They passed the next few minutes in silence. Kuai's eyes went from trying to see round the corners of the blinds, to staring at the contents of the office. A desk occupied most of the width. It was cramped with papers and discarded stationary. There were files and a dead potplant, an old cord telephone, ballpoint pens and photographs of a young family.

"No one will have to know you're testifying. We can get you anonymity." Syun Li-heng was watching him with her arms folded and legs crossed.

"I don't want to have Anna Nimity, I don't want to have anyone! I just want to go home. I've had enough being here!"

"And what about Jia, you'd let her die? I thought you were meant to be her friend."

Kuai's face fell. He bit his lip.

The office door reopened,

"Syun, I can't do this now. We've got a press field day – a homicide down at the dockyard. Some fucker's left a severed spine and skull on a company desk. It's bad. They need all hands. If you sit tight or come back later-"

"I need this now!" Syun stood suddenly. "Take me to the chief. I need to see him immediately. In cuffs if need be, I'm not letting this opportunity get away from us."

"Syun, we've got-"

"A body. I heard you the first time. There's going to be a lot more unless we can take down the JFP. Now get me to the chief!"

Jia's mother was recuffed,

"Stay here!" She said to Kuai abrasively as she was hustled out the door by her colleague. Kuai open his mouth to argue, but the door swung shut behind them and clicked. Kuai was left alone in the office. He hesitated for a moment, then got up and tried the handle. The door was locked fast. He swallowed. Something like panic was starting inside him. He blinked his eyes fast when he felt specks of tears on them. He raised his fist to bang on the door, but then paused, would they let him out? Would they ask more questions? He so badly wanted to go home, he wished he'd never left school to go and talk to stupid Jia. He needed to get out of here quietly. He needed to not make this any worse. He needed for no more police to ask questions about Bi-Han. He sniffed and blinked back tears quickly again. He was Lin Kuei. He was trained for this. He wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and tried to find the place in the door crack where the lock mechanism was. The lip of the door folded over the lock on this side. There was no way to see the lock or even what kind it was. His lip trembled.

He glanced around the room. A row of two chairs on one side faced a row of two on the other. There was the desk, a filing cabinet beyond and a shelving unit. All he could think of was that the door was locked. He was locked inside a police station and if someone saw that Jinhai Zho's brother was in the police station, that might be it. And not just for the mission.

His eyes fell on the corded telephone. He glanced back at the door then darted forward. He grabbed the whole phone and pulled it with him under the desk. He sat and dialled in a number.

"Who is this?"

"Bi-Han?" Kuai said quietly.

" _Fuck._ " He heard on the other end of the line, then the speaker was muffled and he heard distant conversation as his brother extracted himself from a room. When the phone was finally unmuffled, Kuai could hear the distant hum of passing traffic.

" _Kuai Liang, what the fuck?"_ Bi-Han hissed down the phone, "How did you get this number?!"

"I got it off your phone when you weren't looking. I memorised it in case I got into trouble."

"Oh and let me guess, that's now? I'm about to go into a meeting! When I get home you are in so much tr-"

"Bi-Han..." Kuai's voice came out a frightened plea, "Please don't be angry but I really am in trouble."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Kuai shuffled back into the dark of the footwell under the desk. His fingers tightened on the phone.

"I-I'm locked in an office in a police station."

There was more silence. Kuai could only tell his brother was still on the line because traffic still passed in the distance.

"I thought you were at school."

"I-it's a long story. B-but I snuck out of school to tell my friend to leave town but… I'm not sure what happened… Jia's mother- I mean the lady you tried to kill, who I…- She brought me to the police station and she wants me to test… test… say bad things about you."

The phone speaker was smothered again, but Kuai could still hear his brother swearing on the other end. He closed his eyes tight. When Bi-Han spoke again, all of his anger was gone, and there was only efficiency.

"You say you're locked in, can you pick the lock."

"I tried, I can't."

"Find the place closest to the lock mechanism, you're going to need to use your cryomancy to freeze a localised area. You'll need to be careful and controlled or you'll have a lot of noise and questions on your hands."

"Bi-Han I can't do it! I'm afraid. If I do it wrong everyone will see! They'll put me in prison for being a freak and I'll never see you or Tomas again! I won't do it I-"

"Calm down. No one's going to put you in prison. You can do it, you've done it with me a hundred times."

"In the Temple! Where there weren't all these policemen! And even then I made too much noise and froze a whole door! Bi-Han, please come and get me, please!"

"I can't just waltz into a police station! Do you have any idea what that would do to my cover?!"

"Bi-Han..." Kuai's voice finally cracked.

Bi-Han was walking circles in front of Grace Yeung's brothel house. He put a hand over his eyes, racking his brain.

"Everything alright?"

Bi-Han stopped pacing suddenly. He moved his finger and stealthily hung up the call. He had been waiting outside Grace's office for a meeting when the phone had rang. He'd passed on excuses to someone waiting at the door and extracted himself.

"I… yes." He stalled, painfully aware that he'd been displaying emotion to the contrary a second before.

Grace looked at him through round green lenses that flashed yellow in the afternoon sun.

"I mean… no." He corrected quietly. His expression turned dark as he thought of Kuai, alone, afraid, and his innocent nature manipulated by others who could benefit from him. Bi-Han's eyes flashed and he turned to Grace, "The police have picked up my brother. They've got him locked in a room. I'm going to go get him out."

"Hold up there." She held up a palm and he stopped. "They've got your brother. Have they charged him with something?"

"No..."

"How old his he?"

"Ten."

"Are you his only guardian?"

"Yes." Bi-Han felt something unusually close to hope flutter in his chest as Grace drew out a phone of her own.

"This is Grace Yeung, I'd like to talk to Chief Inspector Cheng. I don't care if he's in a meeting. Inform him who's on the phone immediately, or I'll have you fired. Yes. That is correct. I said Yeung." She tapped her foot as she waited and shrugged at Bi-Han. He stood hesitant and apprehensive on the edge of her vision. "Yes. Inspector Cheng? Good. You are unlawfully holding a minor without charge and without the presence of a legal guardian. His name is-" She looked up at Bi-Han,

"Zho Tao." Bi-Han said quickly.

"His name is Zho Tao. See that he is released from your station immediately, or the agreement between my family and your department will be terminated shortly after it has made headline news." She hung up the phone and put it back in her pocket.

Bi-Han stared at her.

"Will… will that work?"

"Should do." She jerked her head towards the town centre, "Go find out if you like."

He made to leave, but then paused uncertainly. He bowed low to Grace.

"Thank you."

She waved him away,

"You are of my family now. I keep my own."

"The meeting..." He started, remembering why he was here.

"Can wait. A severed spine just hit radio headline news. I'm hazarding a guess at mission success. Go get your brother."

Bi-han nodded gratefully.

Bi-Han walked briskly down to the police station, sometimes half at a run. All the way there he could not help but think on Grace's words about keeping her own. He frowned. _Like the Lin Kuei, but warmer._ He shook his head. The Lin Kuei would hit harder when it came to mistakes and betrayal.

When he arrived outside the station there were a number of police cars all just wheeling off with their sirens blaring. There was no sign of Kuai. He waited on the far side of the road, frantically pacing up and down. He folded his arms, then unfolded them. It took all the patience in his body to stop from storming the precinct. His pacing became more agitated with each passing minute. Eventually the glass doors opened and a small frightened Kuai Liang was issued onto the street. His arms were wrapped around himself, and with a jolt Bi-Han saw his eyes were still red from tears. Bi-Han strode into the middle of the rode and was nearly knocked down by a car that had to slam on the breaks. Bi-Han put his finger up at the car and swore at it loudly. The driver honked back. Bi-Han crossed and powered up to the police officer directing Kuai out of the building. He snatched Kuai away from the officer and picked him up. The boy's arms and legs immediately wrapped tight around him. Bi-Han scowled a death glare at the officer. A moment later Syun Li-heng came out the building. She was vaguely accompanied by another officer and had her hands in cuffs. Bi-Han locked eyes with her and slowly drew his thumb across his neck.

 _Dead._

He mouthed.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I was ill the week before last so didn't get much writing or proof reading done. Decided to skip a week of updating in order to write more. More has now been written :)

I like crime dramas with no nonsense cops who just want to get the job done. Lots of inspiration for Syun came from Serpico and also Chan Chi-Lung, Donnie Yen's character from Special ID (there's a lot of Special ID in this fic). But irl I hate the way cops cosy up to you to manipulate you. There's this fake persona of friendliness that's used to make it seem like they're your friend, then they try to wheedle info out of you. It's often unclear if they're even talking to you in their capacity as a police officer. I imagine an impressionable young Kuai would get swept up in that confusion.

Thanks fyvaproldg for the reviews, I'm glad you liked the creepy contrast between sweet Bi-Han and violent Bi-Han. A big theme in the fic is Bi-Han not seeing any contradiction between those two states, and that just being who he is, so I'm glad it came over as unsettling!


	22. Where We Fear to Tread

Grace set down her book at he entered. Bi-Han bowed low.

"How's the little brother?"

"Somewhat traumatised, but safely home thanks to you." Bi-Han straightened and stood legs slightly apart, hands behind his back.

"Least I can do for my new enforcer. The severed spine and skull made quite a stir in the news. Herman Mah won't be in a hurry to encroach on JFP markets again." Grace sounded matter-of-fact, rather than admonishing.

"I hope that was what was desired. I can work more low profile in future."

"Low profile has it's uses." She reached for a teapot and poured a cup. "Tea?" She asked. Bi-Han bowed his head in assent. She poured him a cup and handed it to him, "But so much of what we do in the clan is about sending messages. They don't all need to be so flashy, but on the whole flashy is a message that hits home hard. And you do seem to have a flair for it."

He tilted his head, receiving that as a compliment. There was a silence. Grace sipped her tea. Bi-Han hesitated a moment, then sipped his also. It was black and smokey, the first good tea he'd had since he arrived. He thought for a short while before his next words, then said carefully,

"I… saw Li-heng Syun as I left the police station. She was in handcuffs."

"Was she now." Grace leant on her desk. She did not seem surprised, but then it was hard for Bi-Han to read her emotions.

"I suppose she'd just been picked up for something trivial."

"Perhaps." Grace said. She sipped her tea in silence. Bi-Han was unsure if he'd stepped over a line in implicating someone much closer to Grace than himself. Eventually Grace said, "She didn't call me about it."

There was an awkward silence. Bi-Han focussed on his tea. Grace gave a sigh and set down her teacup.

"When I called the Chief of Police to release your brother, I thought I heard Syun's voice in the room while I was on the phone. Trivial offences don't tend to provoke that kind of company. So now I'm wondering what does."

Bi-Han kept his eyes even and his face steady.

"You think she's ratting to the police?"

Grace looked at him. The edge in her eyes was only just visible through the green glare of her glasses,

"I suspect her of _being_ police." She said mildly. "It wouldn't be the first time Hong Kong Police Force have gone behind our backs and sought to undermine the cordial relationship my family shares with them. And Syun always did shoot a gun like a pro. She told me she was ex-private security when I took her on some years ago, but she's too clean and too quick _not_ to resort to violence. I've been wondering for some time if she's on the payroll. This incident moves my suspicions from spurious to highly probable."

Bi-Han stayed very quiet. If someone could spend several years undercover and still be suspected by Grace Yeung, he didn't want to think about what might happen to him.

"Keep an eye on her. Report back to me on her doings. And be ready to kill her on my command."

Bi-Han nodded,

"You want me to follow her?"

"No. I'm sending you both out together to take care of something. You'll have all the proximity you want." She smiled mirthlessly. Bi-Han did not return it.

"You want me to pretend all is normal and work with an undercover police officer?"

" _Potential_ undercover police officer. Yes. She's avoided causing any fatalities in her work for me thus far. Let's see what shakes her up and whether her high morals get in the way of her loyalty to me. If they do, you can shoot her." She frowned, "I noticed you don't carry a gun."

"I… prefer more traditional methods. Guns can go wrong. And have to be reloaded. People have become too reliant on machines to take life."

Her eyebrows raised,

"As you wish. Whatever gets the job done." She pulled out her notebook, "In two days time there will be a public fundraising event at a big house down in Aberdeen. The event is hosted by a businessman who buys wholesale off my uncle. A very wealthy client. I find it unlikely that a party this big will occur without our client arranging to buy a large number of recreational drugs to supply to his guests."

"Am I to kill this client?"

"I'd rather you didn't. He pays the family a lot of money, I do want some infrastructure to remain in place after I've removed unworthy factions from power in this clan. Disrupt the payment and drug transfer. Make sure my uncle doesn't get his money. Even better, make sure I do. But these are cherries on top of the cake. The cake is to prevent the transfer from taking place. Bodies dropping is secondary to that." She tore off the notebook page and handed it to him, "And if there _are_ bodies to drop, try to make Syun do it. Let's ruffle her theoretical police feathers."

A smile escaped Bi-Han before he could cover it up with his usual stoicism.

"Glad you approve." She turned away, picking up her tea and her book then sitting back down at her desk.

Bi-Han looked at the notepaper.

"That's in two days time, what would you have me do til then?" He was really hoping he didn't have to attend any more Yeung bonding burger sessions. The open air car rides to loud music had been bearable, but hardly incognito.

"Do as you wish. And find yourself something to wear to the event."

Bi-Han breathed out gratefully at that. He bowed, set his empty tea cup down and left. The corridor was alive with off-duty workers. Bi-Han had not visited the brothel by night, but he supposed that the place became more like a theatre then, all spectacle and allure. During the daytime it was a business headquarters out of which, from what Bi-Han could see, Grace ran most of the Yeung companies on Hong Kong Island. A couple of people smiled at him, recognising him from yesterday morning.

"Hey," A man with a thin long form clad only in a silk dressing gown, sporting dyed red hair quiffed to one side and sparkling gold on his eyelids put a hand on his shoulder. Bi-Han started at the contact. He hated being touched. He made exceptions for Kuai when he was in distress. He smiled a little stiffly. The man immediately withdrew his hand, seeing it made Bi-Han uncomfortable, "You're the boss's new enforcer, right?"

Bi-Han nodded uncertainly. The man whistled, impressed.

"That stuff down at the docks was yours, right? It's all over the headline news yesterday and today. Quite something."

Bi-Han shifted his weight. A mission well done for the Lin Kuei was seen as a bar set high. His fellow clan members were encouraged to see a challenge, a competition to their own ability. There were never compliments from colleagues, only cold stares as Bi-Han removed them further from the Grandmaster's favour.

"Uh. Thanks."

"No problem. Your work keeps us safe. This is the best goddamn job I ever got. I appreciate all you do for us. Keep it up." The man made to slap him on the back, but then stopped as if remembering something. He instead gave him a traditional hand on fist salute, smiled and walked away.

Bi-Han was in a good mood that morning. He went to the supermarket and did his best to buy fresh food he could turn into a meal. He remembered Kuai mentioning that a friend at school was cooked meals everyday by a brother. As he made his way around the market, this became something of a competition in his head. He wondered what this apparently amazing brother did to turn all these vegetables into meal. He filled his basket with things that looked familiar and things that were bright colours, because he couldn't think of a better way to choose what to buy. He thought of Kuai saying he was sick of just plain rice, and piled in a kilogram of noodles. By this point his basket was overflowing, so he went and got a second one and started to fill that up too. He got three more bags of coffee because his head had started hurting when he didn't drink some in the morning, and a whole melon, because he remembered that had made Kuai happy when they first arrived. When he had finished the shopping baskets were substantial weights even for him, and he got up at five each morning for a ritual workout. The cashiers entered a special place somewhere between aghast and fantastical disbelief, already mentally writing stories of this encounter to retell at other times and places. Bi-Han handed over a wad of notes Nat had given him last week. He rarely handled money and still hadn't memorised which notes were which. He took his change and bagged his goods. The thought of Kuai's expression kept him amiable all the way home.

He got home at midday to find Kuai practising cryomancy forms. Bi-Han set down his bags on the kitchen counter and folded his arms, watching for a bit. Kuai's face was stony serious as he executed the forms Bi-Han had created.

"Good." Bi-Han gave, as Kuai finished. It hadn't been good, in his opinion. There were places were Kuai was too stiff, his shoulders high, his heel off the ground and his footwork lazy, but he had to occasionally say 'good', or he found Kuai shutdown and couldn't progress for despair in his own ability.

Kuai's face was blank and his voice hard,

"It wasn't good; it was sloppy. You told me to practice harder and I didn't practice hard enough. So I couldn't get myself out of trouble yesterday."

So that was what this was about. Bi-Han sighed.

"Even if you were perfect in the classroom, it still doesn't mean it would go well in a difficult situation."

"It would for you. You manage to do everything perfectly."

"Being good at cryomancy doesn't mean I always make perfect decisions, Kuai. Take yesterday. If I had been in your situation, yes, I would have used ice to break the lock. I would have had to dodge a number of people on my way out of a busy police station. And people would have been wondering how a functioning doorlock could have been shattered from the inside out. You forced me to rethink the situation, and it turned out there was a much better solution in getting the Jade Fist Pact to set you free. Even being perfect at cryomancy doesn't make you perfect at making good choices."

Kuai lowered his eyes. He didn't look any happier. Bi-Han frowned. He glanced behind into the plastic shopping bags.

"I got you this." He pulled out the melon and offered it to Kuai.

Kuai took the melon silently in hand, and for a moment Bi-Han thought nothing would lift his spirits.

"Looks like your head." Kuai said in the same despondent tone, but then a small smile cracked his face. He looked up and his eyes were mischievous. Bi-Han felt his whole body sigh in relief.

"Should be perfect then." Bi-Han shot back. "Want some now?"

"Can I cut it?"

Bi-Han pulled down the blinds.

"Sure." Then he narrowed his eyes and smiled cunningly. "But only with an ice kori blade."

"What!? But mine come out all wobbly and break really easily! Hey, you didn't say it had to be mine! You make me one and I'll use yours!"

Bi-Han laughed at his quick thinking,

"Fine. But first I want you to at least try."

Kuai did manage to summon a blade, and it's fine ice edge cut the melon clean in half. True, it shattered afterwards, but it was still the strongest ice sword he'd managed yet. Kuai's eyes glowed with pride as he turned them to Bi-Han.

"Soon I won't even be embarrassed to call you my brother," Bi-Han gave. Kuai threw what was left of his sword at Bi-Han's head who grinned as he dodged it. Bi-Han remembered Kuai always revelled in his praise though, and added, "Good work, Kuai Liang. That was a good, strong blade."

Kuai blushed, and looked down, smiling shyly and happily.

Soon they were sitting at the table together with a growing pile of melon rinds on a plate in the centre. Kuai paused as another slice was on the way to his mouth.

"I understand what you meant now about the police being another gang. They just wanted me to do a thing for them to get to you, like Uncle Nat did."

Bi-Han's eyes were gentle. These were hard lessons to learn at only eleven years old.

"That's right." He said quietly. "That's all anyone is ever part of – another gang that believes their own way is the right way. We can work with these people, but we can never trust them. At the end of the day their loyalties are to their own clans, as ours is to ours."

"At first I was ashamed about being Lin Kuei here. It feels like cheating to be hiding among people when we're just here for you to kill them. But Jia's mother hides so that she can catch people too. Everyone is attached to somewhere and thinks they are right. But right for us is obeying the Grandmaster so that he doesn't hurt us."

"Obeying the Grandmaster because it is our duty." Bi-Han corrected carefully. However much he might think there was truth in Kuai's words, it would not do well for the child to go around saying such things.

Kuai nodded. He bit into his melon and enjoy to the sweet juices that ran between his teeth.

"When do you have to go out again?"

"In about an hour."

Kuai's face fell, but Bi-Han could see he was trying hard to hide it. Kuai had stayed home from school today because the happenings yesterday had upset him so much, but it was clear loneliness was getting to him.

"I'm going out all afternoon," Bi-Han explained, "I've got an eleventh birthday to celebrate, so I can't be sticking around in the house all day."

Kuai's head snapped up, eyes full of confused disbelief and hope.

"Care to join me?" Bi-Han waited until the last moment to let his serious face drop into a smile.

Kuai jumped out of his seat.

"I forgot today was my birthday! I know you always try to make me remember it and get me something special, but I never understood what they were about until I came here – Bi-Han the kids at school get special trips and gifts, and they sing songs to the person – they even stopped a class to sing!"

"Not a tradition the Lin Kuei are going to start any time soon. But I'm sure we can observe at least some of the occasion."

"And cake! They get the person cake! Can I have a cake?! Oh I just had melon and I'm quite full. Can I have cake this evening?! Where are we going? Are we going on a trip? Will it just be me and you? I hope its just me and you – I mean Uncle Nat is nice and all, but his friends are a bit weird, especially that guy with the sunglasses. I wish Tomas could be here! He'd be so excited!"

"Alright, calm down before I knock you unconscious and you spend the rest of the day on the kitchen floor."

"Thank you so much for the melon by the way. I'll go put my shoes on. In your next report to the Grandmaster can you make sure he hears about my ice sword? It was about the size of my whole arm, by the way, did you see?"

"I was standing right next to you."

"It was really big. Looked even bigger than the ones you make, Bi-Han. If we go to see a film can we see Rush Hour? That's a film with Mr Chan in who's a good martial artist. Oh! Bi-Han, on the other side of the peninsular there's a place where you can see real live giant pandas, can we please go and see them!?"

"Are they good martial artists too."

"No, but they're so big and really rare and beautiful, and it's an amazing opportunity and I think there's a bus that can take us right there, what do you think, can we see the pandas?"

"Alright, Kuai."

They passed the afternoon in a quiet way. It wasn't quiet audibly – the park was busy with tourists and young families all running and shouting, with rides clattering like shuttle trains over head and the squawk of exotic birds piercing the air from their enclosures. It was quiet as a step out of the daily rhythm of their lives. When Bi-Han looked at his brother, he could almost see him fitting in with the other children who ran about. His eyes were bright and his shoulders weren't hunched in fear. He wasn't looking over one shoulder anxiously, or stammering an apology to a displeased teacher, or trying to hide his laughter or care. He stared in wonder at new animals, new food, new machinery, new technology, and always he looked back, wanting to share his joy with his brother. Bi-Han tried to stay in the moment and see the world as Kuai saw it, but always his thoughts kept straying off, building contingency plans for if the policewoman stabbed him in the back mid-mission the day after tomorrow.

Birthdays weren't celebrated by the Lin Kuei. A rough estimate of age was kept to help better structure classes, but most students lost track somewhere in their early teens. Everyone knew when they got to eighteen, because a solo mission was sprung on them that marked their transition to a full-fledged member of the Lin Kuei. Succeeding such a mission would earn them a codename, whilst failing… Bi-Han had regular nightmares of the fated day still seven years down the line when Kuai Liang would take that test.

He had recalled from his early childhood that birthdays were numbered, remembered, and treated as special. Throughout their life in the Lin Kuei, he had insisted that Kuai keep that date as his own, and hold on to that vestige of his identity. Even though Bi-Han had long since forgotten his own, he would always gently remind Kuai of his, and make some small token effort to give it meaning.

Throughout the afternoon he watched other families and their interactions, trying to learn from how they acted, what they said, what they did, how they showed affection. He became more agitated the longer he watched however, as the day drew on, he had an increased sense of not belonging, as if he were trying to step into a painting that was already finished. He somehow did not belong, and the longer he tried, the more aware he became of his own deficiencies. People around him had so many expressions and gestures with their body language. They saw things that he did not see. When he looked through the glass into the giant panda enclosure, the first thing he saw were ambush points – the way the rock features hid shadows, places where fallen brush might crunch underfoot, the light sources and the way that rock and cliff could disrupt lines of vision. It was only when a small child who only came up to his knee pointed and squealed in delight that he registered the large sombre form of a sedate bear, slowly stuffing bamboo leaves into its mouth. He realised with a pang, that everyone was looking at the bear. Normal people looked at bears, and not the shadows.

"Jinhai?" Bi-Han blinked and looked round. Liwei, his fellow barman was standing next to him. A young woman in a pale pink shirt and open toed sandals stood behind him, she blushed slightly and moved behind Liwei.

"Oh. Liwei. What a surprise." Bi-Han forgot to summon the emotion and intonation expected of interactions with civilians. Kuai turned round at the exchange. He looked uncertain when he saw Bi-Han was speaking to someone. _He probably thinks Liwei is Triad,_ Bi-Han thought sullenly, although he could hardly fault Kuai for that. Every other person he knew was Triad.

Liwei smiled genuinely at Bi-Han,

"You look well. Is this your brother?"

Kuai looked shyly up at Liwei, not quite sure what to make of him.

Bi-Han nodded and introduced him to Kuai,

"This is Liwei, I worked with him at the restaurant before..."

Liwei's face dropped and there was a prolonged awkward silence, as if both of them only now remembered the exact reasons for Bi-Han's departure.

"Well, you'll be a busy, important man these days, no doubt." Liwei said quickly, suddenly averting his eyes and trying to extract himself from the conversation. In that exact moment Bi-Han hated the Triads more than he hated even the Lin Kuei. He saw in that second all the terror they spread through the city, the friendships pulled apart, the people hurt, the mistrust, and fear that lived among those whose lives it even touched for a fraction.

"Not today. Today I'm just taking my brother out." He reached for something to make him sound more normal, "For his birthday. He's eleven today."

Kuai came out of Bi-Han's shadow and beamed proudly. Liwei gave him a kind smile, but his eyes were still looking for an exit.

"It was nice to see you again, Jinhai. I'm glad you're doing well. But I hope you understand, I don't want any trouble-"

"I'm not here to give you trouble, Liwei," Bi-Han snapped suddenly, startling Kuai out of his smile, "Do you think so little of me that I would do something to jeopardize your well-being?"

"Talking to you is enough to jeopardize my well-being." Liwei was calm in the face of Bi-Han's irritability, like he had been in the weeks in which he patiently worked with him. Kuai had never seen someone so gentle and calm in the face of Bi-Han's coldness before. Liwei looked Bi-Han straight in the eye, "Don't be naive. Know the path you have chosen, and know that pretending that's not the case will get people hurt. If you walk with the storm, lightening strikes those caught in its shadow." He gave a slight smile and bowed his head slightly in farewell. He put his arm around the young woman and they walked away together.

Bi-Han turned back to the glass window pane before them. Kuai couldn't read his emotions, but he could see some perfect mix of a black mood brewing in there.

"He didn't even stay for the fucking pandas." Bi-Han said darkly.

A mother standing close by gave him a dirty look and clapped her hands over her child's ears, steering them away protesting.

Kuai sighed. He could feel Bi-Han's hostility coming off in waves. He'd noticed that throughout the afternoon his brother had been struggling more and more to enjoy the time they spent together. Kuai had watched him try to fit in for him and be like the people around him, but the time had come to return the favour.

"I'm getting a little sleepy, Bi-Han, shall we go home?"

"What? But you only looked at your damn bears, for two minutes."

"That's ok. They're pretty slow anyway, think two minutes is probably enough."

Bi-Han eyed him suspiciously, looking as if he doubted the honesty of Kuai's claim.

"And anyway, when we get home, we can have cake, right?" Kuai did his best to summon all his geniality and brightness into the look he gave his brother. He saw the characteristic edge and shadow retreat from his brother's face.

Bi-Han nodded a little reluctantly,

"Sure. I guess."

* * *

 **Author Note:** Here you go, the bros are almost happy for a whole chapter!

Thanks for you continued support and reveiws. Shout out to Hood Politician who read this all in one day - that's a lot of reading, glad you're enjoying it! And to fyvaproldg - glad you like the female characters especially! I've been conscious of not having enough strong female characters in my writing, so to combat this, the default in this fic is that I write a new character as female or non-binary unless its important to the story that they're male.


	23. Loyalties Tested

It was raining. The headlights of cars smeared goldlines into the black night as they refracted in puddles and swerved up to the house. Bi-Han was stalking up and down under a balcony to stop his new suit from being ruined by rain. He was swearing into a telephone as he tried to find out where he was meant to be. Anton Kwan, the pugnacious and trigger-happy man who had shot Raymond in the leg some weeks ago, was occupying a role something like mission director. Bi-Han had had a lot of experience with mission directors, he'd even had to answer to Sektor a number of times in that capacity, but Anton Kwan took the biscuit for being wilfully incompetent to the point of sabotage.

"If you knew it was a 'mystery venue' before tonight, then don't you think a _little_ advance warning would have been in order?!"

"You're the rising star. Didn't you do your homework, kid?"

"My fucking homework involved studying plans of _this_ manor, under the impression that _this_ was were I was meant to fucking _be._ "

"Woah there, language, kid. Didn't your mother ever wash your mouth out with soap?"

" _Do you know where I'm meant to be going?_ "

"Eh, chill. Can't you just follow everyone else?"

"Me and what car?!"

"Calm it, kid. Sure something'll turn up. But hey if it doesn't, you could always rip someone's spine out and jump a few more ranks while your at it."

"I'll rip your spine for you any day!" Bi-Han snarled down the phone. He hated being under-prepared for a mission. Things went perfectly for him because he prepared perfectly. That was all there was to the secret of the great Sub-Zero. He swore again and spat. He was about to volley into a new tirade when he saw Syun Li-heng hurry up to him though the rain, she motioned for him to hang up and he gladly did so.

She offered him a slip of paper.

"Jumbo Floating Restaurant. It's been booked out for weeks for this evening. Its only a short ride from here and all the cars are headed that way."

"Pays to have police intuition." Bi-Han shot back.

"Or to be good at my work." She retorted as quick as him.

So that was how this was going to be. They were going to pretend it wasn't as good as confirmed that Syun was undercover. Well that worked fine for Bi-Han for now, it would have been inconvenient to admit to Grace that he had planned out which of her high command he had intended to assassinate to give Nat a leg up in the clan. He was willing to let this play out for now.

"Grace have you watching me?" Syun said as she motioned Bi-Han to her car.

"This the same car you drove my brother down to the police station in?"

They exchanged dark glares with each other, then sat in silence as Syun drove them to their destination.

"The fuck is that?!" Bi-Han felt his temper simmering. He peered through the windscreen wipers of Syun's battered car as they rounded the corner onto the road by the promenade.

"How can you not have seen this before. You realise this is one of the biggest attractions this side of the city?"

"My brother prefers pandas."

The restaurant was built like a traditional palace, with high pagoda towers, but lit up from every corner and angle by gaudy gold lights. It lay just off shore with a black strip of sea parting it from the dockside. The entire outline of every line in the palace architecture was blistering gold. Bi-Han squinted at the wall of light. Sitting squarely on the roof of the three storey faux-palace was an enormous neon sign spelling 'JUMBO' in English.

"It's hideous."

Syun wound her window down a crack as the car steamed with humidity from the warm wet night air.

"Like your manners. Jump out, I'm going to park."

Bi-Han stepped carefully between puddles as he made his way to a lit up jetty sporting a similar bright display of traditional imperial architecture. The imposing architecture reminded him uncomfortably of the Lin Kuei Temple. This palace was a glaring blend of modern and ancient lit up for amusement and leisure. He couldn't help feeling like standing close to the building would be taken as an offence in his clan. He lost no time in merging with a small group preparing to board a show ferry to the floating restaurant. The black water sent distorted reflections of the palace as shimmering ripples before the ferry prow. There were slightly too many people on his boat, and he had to stand near the front as the prow chugged up the dark waters. With the black glittering sea before him, and the muffled bustling hush of waiting diners behind him, the restaurant imposed upon him a new impressive grandeur and anticipation all of its own. He was quieted with a new kind of awe for this world so very different from the one he had grown up in.

He stepped off unsteadily onto the restaurant promenade. Everything was unapologetically bright with red, gold and green paint. Two enormous dragons curled about the entrance, and he let himself be herded with the other guests through the main doorway. There were servers either side checking invitations to the event, but the arriving crowd was at least three people across as he entered, and it was a relatively simple matter for him to move incognito past the servers into the restaurant.

He found himself staring at a long room with red pillars and intricate ceiling tiles all hung with lights. His pace changed to one touched with reverence. The opulence certainly felt convincing.

"You smuggle a gun in or is hand-to-hand suffocation still a preferred operating method of yours?"

Bi-Han grated his teeth, he had expected Syun to take a while longer to get in here. That would have given him more of a chance to scout the place alone.

"Be thankful. It's the only reason your still alive." He didn't look at her as he said this. His eyes were scanning restaurant guests and getting a feel for the layout of the deck.

"So I should be thankful for your incompetence? You inspire confidence."

"Call for back up on your police radio if you want."

Syun gave him a humourless smile and strode into the restaurant. She was dressed in a vague but unconvincing attempt at looking smart. She wore a worn black blazer and pin-stripe trousers. Bi-Han by contrast had a veritable wardrobe tailored to him from his time working with Nathaniel. It was true Nat couldn't keep his businesses nailed down, but he knew how to look the part. Bi-Han's simple sleek Chinese suit made him much more invisible in a room of well-dressed functionaries.

"Sure you didn't want to wear the purple raincoat to complete the out-of-place look. I know they call it plainclothes, but this a special new level right here."

"Shut it." She sounded genuinely testy. Bi-Han was pleased he'd finally managed to hit a nerve. "Spread out and find all the entrances and exits. We're looking for a large stash exchange, so small storage rooms or private areas will be important."

Bi-Han let the atmosphere seep into his step. Being an assassin wasn't just about stealth in the shadows. The art of stealth in plain sight could be perfected by blending into a background of noise and becoming indistinguishable from it. He meandered slowly, enjoying the river of loud silence shifting all around him, until he recognised a face. He turned away slowly so as not to arouse suspicion. He heard a voice follow after him.

"Mr Zho?" Bi-Han turned back equally slowly, giving his best I-have-better-things-to-do expression. The man who had called to him was tall, with white skin, brown hair and business glasses. Bi-Han couldn't recall anything about him other than that this man had irritated him on a previous occasion too. This didn't narrow the list down by much.

"It's Mr Martin! Tao's history teacher!"

"Oh. Yes." Now he recalled. "Mr Head-of-Year-Seven."

Mr Martin seemed to miss the layers of derision in Bi-Han's voice.

"I didn't know you knew Mr Wong! I mean, I suppose it stands to reason, Mr Wong knows everybody. Did you know he's taking charge of renovating one of the old estates just a stone's throw from here?"

"Delightful," Said Bi-Han, not at all delighted.

"I teach his son history as well, you know. He's in Tao's class in fact! I must say it was quite an honour to be invited here. These jumbo restaurants really seem like a touristy thing to me. I'm not really into that, but what a treat to be invited here as a member of the local community."

"Yes, indeed." Bi-Han was looking for an exit. He spotted a bar at the far end of the room, "Excuse me." He smiled emptily at Mr Martin.

"Actually, Mr Zho, I wondered if I could talk to you about Tao. It's just he's getting a bit of a reputation as a truant- skipping out of school early, and he hasn't even come in to class for the last two or three days."

"In which case he hasn't been leaving early, has he."

Mr Martin's face ticked to irritated, but he smoothed it over for the sake of the high-end party. Before he could reply. Bi-Han put a strong hand and slightly painful grip on Mr Martin's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, there's somewhere I have to be."

He wound quickly through the guests, looking to loose the irritation by weaving in and out. He reached the bar and expelled his breath.

"Something non-alcoholic that looks alcoholic, please."

"Jinhai?"

Bi-Han looked up. Liwei was standing in a green apron and black shirt. He had paused with a glass in one hand and a bucket of ice in the other.

"Shit. I can't get away from people today." Bi-Han ran his hand back through his hair.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Liwei hissed at him in an undertone, "Do you know who's event this is?"

"Yes! _Actually._ Will you stop gawping and get me a drink?" He relieved Liwei of his bucket of ice and set it down on the bar to free up his hand. The ice was melting. He surreptitiously held it between his palms and urged cryomancy cold through the metal bucket. It sucked having no ice whilst trying to make drinks for impatient customers.

"Oh God," Liwei whispered, in harsh but hushed tones, as he reached for a cocktail glass and carton of orange juice, "Are you here with… _them?_ "

Bi-Han gave him an irritated glare,

"Can you keep it down?!"

"You _are!_ You're here with the fucking Triads! Just my luck. Just my damn luck. I pick up an extra shift of bar work for a function and who's here-"

"Give me the drink and shut up, Liwei. It won't interfere with your business." Liwei stuck a cherry on a cocktail stick and plonked it in Bi-Han's suave-looking orange juice.

"I hope you choke on your cherry. I can't go anywhere without you creeping in and out my life."

"It's not like I planned this, ok? Will you keep an eye out for a six-foot tall Canadian with glasses?"

"Triad contact?"

"No, my little brother's history teacher. Moaning about my brother missing class. Gods I hate that man. So incessant."

Liwei glared at him for a moment, then his face split into a grin and he couldn't help laughing.

"Damn, Jinhai. I miss your company. You didn't half lighten up the evening."

Bi-Han took a second to let his hard exterior relax. He swirled the cocktail stick and watched it turn in an eddy of orange juice. He sucked the cherry off the stick and gave Liwei a sly look,

"Even miss me helping you with drinks?"

"OK, I don't miss you that much."

Bi-Han grinned and sipped his drink,

"An excellent cocktail, waiter."

"Get out of here. The less time you spend hanging around here the higher the likelihood I don't get dragged into something sticky."

Bi-Han gave him a nod goodbye.

He had scouted out approximately nothing so far, and was privately worried he'd be shown up by Syun. True she was a double-agent with no undercover dress-sense, but she had a knack of being good at her work, and Bi-Han had no intention of coming in second place to her for the duration they had to work together. He took his drink and sidled through the restaurant.

The restaurant was divided into a number of smaller ones. On the lower deck, the tables had been clear away to allow guests to mingle. Large buffet tables were spread under the eaves of red pillars and gold paintwork. Bi-Han sifted through the crowd. He could see the staircase up to the next levels, and two side doors to bathrooms. He nudged each door open with a foot to check. He slipped passed a server showing new guests off the boats into the lower restaurant and meandered upstairs.

The next restaurant was simpler, more elegant, with lights set deep into the ceiling, and round tables with long trailing cloths covering them. It was quieter up here and a few public guests were finishing off early evening meals. He noted another staircase, he was about to follow it when Syun Li-heng came down it. She nodded at his drink,

"Working hard?"

"It's for cover," He hissed, stung by the implication of non-professionalism, "Know much about that?"

She gave him a dead look, then glanced back the way she'd come,

"Balcony deck up there almost totally empty. Not even waiting staff. If something's going to go down, I know where I'd do it."

She set her hand on her hip and slipped a gun out its holster.

"Fucking hell. Already? Really? A gun?"

"You're one foul-mouthed assassin. It pays to be careful." She flattened her back to the wall in the staircase. The night sky winked bright stars at the top of the steps.

"I'm curious," Bi-Han said mildly, also leaning against the wall, but entirely more nonchalantly. He sipped from his cocktail glass, "You must be OCTB, right?" She glanced coldly at him. "Yep, I did a bit of homework. So tell me, does the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau let other wings in the Police Force know who their undercover agents are? I mean if there was a drug bust right now, are you Syun-the-cop to the police who pitch up or Syun, the right hand of Grace Yeung to them?" Bi-Han gave her a cold smile. He had studied the Hong Kong Police Force in depth for just such a moment as this. It paid to have the upper hand if he was going to be working with volatile elements.

Syun gave him a long slow look as she glared at him in the dim lights.

"Want to know what I think, _Zho Jinhai._ I think that crime scene you left at the docks didn't have a whole lot of blood considering the victim had had his spine and skull disconnected from his body. Why _is_ that? Connected at all with a string of unsolved murders in mainland China where the victims all exhibit signs of extreme cold temperature shortly before death?" Bi-Han's insides froze. He kept his smiles working mechanically. "Yeah if you're going to accuse someone of being a cop maybe don't be surprised if they start looking into your non-existent background. What were you, a contract killer in the mainland or just another psychopath serial killer?"

Bi-Han tried to keep his breath even. He could feel every instinct in him reaching out to snap Syun's neck and cover his tracks. He needed to be cleverer, he needed to think and not do anything rash. A cold sweat was on the back of his neck. He'd been too lax. He'd thought too much like a predator and not enough like the hunted. Just as he had the resources of the Lin Kuei at his disposal, so did she have the Police Force. He should have assumed…

"There." Whispered Syun, cutting into his panicked internal monologue. She pointed. Coming along the quieter second deck was a figure in a suit with a briefcase. The figure glanced surreptitiously over one shoulder then stepped up their pace. "This way," She whispered, "They'll see us if we stay here, its the only staircase up. We can lie in wait on the top deck." Syun was silhouetted against the night sky when Bi-Han looked at her, the gun was live in her hand.

"You go on." I'll wait on the second deck and circle round behind. She nodded and hurried up the stairs. Bi-Han slid back the way he had come. He moved into the shadows, feeling foolish with the cocktail glass still in his hand. He could feel a cold weight in his chest. His instincts were changing the priorities of this mission. He thought of the possibility of his identity revealed. Syun Li-heng was one step away from pinning him as a contract assassin working for a larger organisation. That didn't just jeopardise this mission, it risked the exposure of the Lin Kuei. And that meant his life. And Kuai's life. It would be worse than death too. Much much worse. He had to stand back in the shadows and collect himself. He looked down at orange juice glass. It was rocking with the tremble in his hand. He breathed slowly in through his nose and out through his mouth, closing his eyes and letting all the shivers pass through him. Then he moved.

He walked quickly, passing the briefcase man on the corridor, and another man coming up the steps as he continued down to the lower deck. He downed his glass as he entered the main party again and left his glass on a buffet table on the side. He made a beeline for the bar, sliding like silk between the other guests.

"Liwei."

"Jinhai, I'm busy, please don't-"

"I need your help." His eyes were dark and serious. He saw a pained expression in Liwei's eyes.

"Jinahi, I can't. You know I don't want any involvement in-"

"It's not involving you in anything." Bi-Han snapped. Lies were always easier when said with cold conviction, "There's a woman with a gun on the top deck, I think she's dealing drugs to the guests but something's gone sour. She's waving that gun around like she wants to put a hole in someone. I'd report it to the police, but it's too risky for me in my line of work. Will you do it?"

"What? Seriously?" Liwei was suddenly serious, "Fuck! You… you want me to call the police? Aren't there Triad types here? Is this their business?"

"I _am_ the fucking Triads, now call it in!" Bi-Han was agitated as he hovered at the bar. Liwei pulled a corded phone out from under the counter. "I can give you her description." Bi-Han let his words run out fast and anxious, overloading Liwei with panic before the man could think straight. "But be quick OK, she was threatening people. I think she's going to shoot someone."

Liwei gave him a terrified look, and nodded quickly.

As Liwei made the call, Bi-Han felt the dread slowly fade from his stomach. He was regaining control of the situation. He thanked Liwei profusely as the call ended and headed straight for the bathroom. He thought perhaps if he had less adrenaline in his system he might have regretted involving his friend, but the stakes were too high for anyone else to matter just now. He shut the bathroom door, opened the window, and squeezed himself through. He held the outer window frame, glancing down into the black water below. The gold lights of the restaurant, glittered and swam in the dark reflection. The intricate outer woodwork was full of designs that made easy handholds for him. The difficulty was the lilting sway of the boat itself. He'd never had to ascend a building that was floating before. He pulled himself up, keeping to the painted panels between windows to prevent his shadow casting inside. He reached for an ornamental dragon and pulled himself up further. His nose was just below the balcony level now. He couldn't see any figures. He pulled his knees up and shimmied along staying out of sight below the balcony, using his feet to move swiftly along the side of the ship. He stopped when he saw two silhouettes under the eye of the bright silver moon. They were both stooped over a briefcase. His eyes wandered, straying into the shadows, lingering on them until he saw what he was looking for. One shadow moved and shuffled slightly. He had Syun Li-heng's position.

He looked back at the city. It was beautiful from the sea. Especially at night. All the skyscrapers became beacons with flares of light up their sides in shades of every colour. Bi-Han was more interested in the lights of the police cars pulling up at the jetty. He shifted round so that his body blocking out the gaudy boat lights didn't give away his position. Then he was patient. He waited, watching the suitcase business occur. He wondered what Syun was waiting for, and realised it was probably for him. Like a good police officer she was waiting for her back up. _The Lin Kuei work alone,_ was his only thought. The drug deal was wrapping up, and it looked like Syun was out of time.

"Step away from the briefcase." She said calmly, pointing her gun at the two men.

Bi-Han saw the silhouettes back away, hands raised.

"Do you know who I am?" Said one.

"I know you're going to slide both briefcases slowly over this way." Syun's gun didn't waver. Bi-Han had to give her credit for guts alone.

"I don't think so, lady." One man's hand lowered slightly.

"Hands where I can see them. Kick the briefcases over. I don't have all day. Hurry up."

"You can't rob from the Jade Fist Pact, lady."

"Watch me." She said calmly.

Bi-Han reached up over the balcony and took a fork from the neatly set table. He flung it so that it clattered on the deck. In the moment's distraction, one man went for his gun, Syun shot his hand and the gun shot rang wide out over the bay. The shot man screamed. There was a sudden noise and commotion from below deck, with shouts of,

"Out of the way!", coming muffled from the lower levels of the boat.

Syun kept her gun on him and edged toward the suitcases. She moved them with her feet.

"Easy, and no one else has to get hurt."

There were thundering boots from the deck below,

"Out of the way! Narcotics Bureau! Move, move, move!"

" _Shit!"_ Bi-Han heard Syun swear. "Stand down!" She said to the man on the ground, who was reaching with his unshot hand for his gun. The second man was shivering and whimpering under a restaurant table.

Bi-Han heard voices from the stairs,

"This is the Hong Kong Police Force! Lower your weapon! I repeat lower your gun!"

They were coming up the stairs from below. Syun was closer to the stairs. Further from sight were the two men she was aiming at.

"Don't shoot!" She shouted, "Don't shoot!" She kept her gun on the man on the floor as she tried to call back to the police.

Bi-Han saw the nose of police weapons appear from out of the stairwell.

"Lay down your weapon! I repeat lay down your weapon or we will shoot!"

"Don't shoot!" Syun repeated, "There is an armed man here, I can't lower my weapon, don't shoot!"

Bi-Han's upper arms were starting to burn from holding his weight below sight.

"Lay down your weapon!" The police shouted, "You have Five, four-"

"Fuck. Don't shoot! Fuck! OCTB, I'm OCTB, don't shoot!"

"If you're police, you will lay down your weapon and come calmly."

"Alright, alright! But there's an armed man here-"

This was all getting a little too reasonable for Bi-Han. He shimmied round in the dark until he was close to the table where the other man was hiding. He let go with one hand and let the cold flow through his veins. He had so little opportunity to use cryomancy whilst undercover. It felt good to let the cold seethe through him. A second later a blade of ice was in his hand.

He reached through the balcony palisade towards the man cowering under the table. He extended as a shadow from out of the shadows.

" _Scream for me._ " He whispered, and plunged the dagger through the cowering man's shin. He drew the blade out quickly as a scream pierced the air.

He counted the gunshots that followed. One. Two. Three. And the sound of bodies dropping after them. One. Two Three. Bi-Han let the dagger melt in his palm and began a slow steady descent down the side of the boat, his work done.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Probably why Bi-Han has no friends. He shoves them under a bus at the first sign of danger.

Cheers for the reviews and comments on fanfic dot net, archive of our own, and tumblr! Late chapter update this week as I'm in (very hot and humid) Japan!


	24. To Know Oneself

Kuai pulled himself up to the breakfast table. He was feeling happier and healthier than he had in weeks. He took a long sniff and collected all the good smells of frying eggs into him before beaming them back out. Bi-Han stood near the oven top with a plastic spatula, moseying the eggs about. He looked very out of place, but nothing was burning.

"Thank you for cooking for me, Bi-Han."

Kuai had been expecting an incisive comeback, or at least a grunt. His brother did neither however, and instead his gaze was ruminating in the frying pan. Kuai turned back to the table, it wasn't so unusual for Bi-Han to be lost in thought over his next plans. A new newspaper lay in front of him. Kuai pulled it over.

 _DRUG-RAID AT PARTY CONNECTS WONG EMPIRE TO TRIAD_

Kuai frowned. The picture under the headline depicted an unamused man in a suit and glasses with folded arms standing before an enormous house. An anxious woman stood just behind him with hands on the shoulders of a young boy.

 _A police raid last night at an evening function at Aberdeen's famous Jumbo Floating Restaurant has potentially jeopardised the Wong family business. The Wongs are an old family on HK Island and have built their reputation on the claim to operate free from all organised crime. Last night's raid, which saw an officer wounded, and claimed the lives of an undercover officer and gang member, will hit the Wong business empire hard. Police seized four kilograms of cocaine and_ _over a million HKD_ _in cash from the high end party. The Hong Kong Housing Authority and Housing Development have already indicated they will be suspending a large contract recently approved that would see the Wong business renovate the_ _Shek Pai Wan Estate, pending further police investigations._

Kuai's heart skipped. He looked back up at the photograph at the top of the page. Now that he studied it closer-

"Hey, Bi-Han! Did you see these headlines?! This boy here in the picture! That's Nianzu from school! His dad's in some kind of trouble about drugs!" Kuai's face was radiant, "This means Jia doesn't have to move house! They're not going to let Nianzu's dad pull her house down!"

Bi-Han said nothing. He carefully leafed an egg onto the spatula and slid it on top of a bowl of rice, peas and tofu. He set the bowl down in front of Kuai and retrieved an egg for himself.

"Thanks!" Kuai said enthusiastically. He grabbed his chopsticks and ate hungrily.

He looked up when nearly half his bowl was gone. Bi-Han was eating at a sedate pace. He was quiet, but not, as Kuai had assumed, lost in thought. His eyes roved across the table, lingering on the newspaper. His eyebrows twitched with half formed regrets and unspoken frustrations. Kuai balanced his chopsticks on his bowl, and said carefully,

"Is everything OK, Bi-Han?"

Bi-Han said nothing. Kuai's toes curled under the table and he wondered if he had somehow done something wrong.

Bi-Han nodded at the newspaper,

"Did you read that."

It wasn't really framed as a question. Kuai pulled the paper back over to him. It was a long article. His eyes flicked over it, scan reading it again. It was all there in print. Nianzu's father shown up as the scoundrel Kuai always knew he must be to have a son like Nianzu.

"...Yeah?"

"Undercover cop killed."

Kuai blinked. He looked back at the article. He had read that, but the way the newspaper talked about it, that hadn't seemed so important… And it wasn't like Bi-Han to get sentimental over anyone's death. That was more his domain. Kuai started in realisation. He _did_ know an undercover police officer. But there must be so many, surely it wasn't-

"Not… it wasn't Jia's mother, though, right?" It was more like a plea, and he somehow already knew the answer.

"Yes."

Kuai sat stunned for a moment. Staring at his half finished breakfast. He stood abruptly,

"B-Bi-Han, how could you!? You promised you wouldn't-"

"I promised nothing. She knew too much."

Tears sprung into Kuai's eyes, they weren't for him though – they were for his friend and for Ru who made him dinners, and for all Jia's sisters and the little baby who was too young to even understand. He backed away from Bi-Han shaking his head.

"I didn't lay the killing blow." Bi-Han gave, "But she knew too much. She was a step away from finding out about the Lin Kuei."

"Then you should have been more careful!" Kuai said savagely.

Bi-Han was taken aback.

"She was a good person with a whole family who needed her!" Kuai was shouting through his tears. The woman who lived upstairs started banging her broom on the floor to shut them up.

"Have you forgotten she abducted you and locked you in a police station?" Bi-Han's eyes flashed and he squared up. The movement alone was usually enough to make Kuai back down. This time he did not.

"Because she wanted me to give evidence about the terrible things you've done?! And now she's dead! She's dead because of you!"

Anger rose up in Bi-Han at his brother's confrontational stance. His eyes narrowed to slits. Then he breathed out slowly and deflated. He picked up his chopsticks again.

"Everyone dies, Kuai Liang."

"But not everyone has to die like that! With their family to care for!"

"We would have." Bi-Han started eating slowly again, "If the Lin Kuei had been exposed. They would have killed you age eleven-years-and-two-days."

Kuai stopped, unsure how to respond now that his brother's customary fury had vanished. His breath came in stuttering stops and his tears came intermittent and unsure, like guilt.

"W-why do all the people I know get… touched by... violence... and death… It's like a curse. I get to know someone and her whole life gets ruined. It wouldn't have been ruined if I'd never met her."

"I warned you that we're not here to make friends." Kuai's tears welled large again and fell more steadily. Bi-Han looked away, "If it's any consolation, this had nothing to do with you. You saved your friend's mother from me before. And you saved her again in Nathaniel's flat. Some people have a dedication to duty that goes beyond common sense. You must let them own their own choices and actions. Their agency and choices are theirs alone. It is selfish to think otherwise. The world is not yours to save, Kuai Liang."

"But it's yours to destroy." Kuai kicked the chair he had been sitting on and sent his skidding across the floor. He stormed out the kitchen.

Bi-Han got up to go after him, but his phone rang. He cursed and pulled it out his pocket. The small green display screen informed him Anton Kwan was ringing. He cursed again softly. He hadn't reported in yet. It told him a lot that he was being contacted by Anton and not by Grace directly. None of the things it told him were good. He put the phone on the table, wishing it would stop ringing. When it finally did, he felt faintly guilty. It buzzed once more to tell him he had a text.

 _Get yourself here right now. Last night needs explaining. Anton._

Bi-Han took a deep breath. He left the phone on the table and edged to the bedroom. Kuai was sitting in the corner with his arms around his legs, staring straight forward. The room was cold. Bi-Han said nothing, but sat down next to Kuai.

After a little, he said quietly,

"I'm sorry I had someone killed that you cared for."

"No you're not." Kuai snapped back. His voice was cold like the air, and hurt.

"Yes, I am," Bi-Han said gently, "I'm always sorry when I do something that hurts you."

"Then you're sorry for the wrong reasons. There's more than just me in the world, Bi-Han. There are other people that hurt to."

Bi-Han looked at his little brother,

"I cannot care for them."

Kuai glared back at him, legs still pulled tight under his chin, eyes steely and hard,

"You don't even try."

"No..." Bi-Han admitted, "It would be too much." Kuai stared, waiting for him to elaborate. Bi-Han did so reluctantly, "Caring for you… is something I have struggled to do all my life. There is so little space within the Lin Kuei for such emotions, and it has been a task enough to find a place for that – to carve a space in which I am permitted to care. In return… I do things without question. But I cannot let myself think about my targets as people like you or I. I cannot think of the world as populated with Kuai Liangs all out there, suffering at my hand. It would be too much." He looked straight forward at the far wall, then down at his hands. The pads on his palm and skin on his knuckles were calloused. He touched these callouses absently. "I'm just trying to survive, Kuai Liang. Can you fault me for wanting to live? You're not much older than I was when the Lin Kuei took me from my home. I do not remember much from then, and before that… things are hazy. Memories come back sometimes, brought on suddenly by a familiar smell or sight. It was a monumental change in my life that I suppose I never really knew how to deal with."

Kuai looked at Bi-Han, his anger still strong, but stilled for now. Bi-Han had never talked of this past before. Bi-Han kept feeling his knuckles, as if unsure how they came to be so tough.

"You were so small then. And the easiest way to adapt was to be strong for you. I didn't let myself think too hard about what was happening to me, I didn't give myself time to be afraid. I put on a brave face for you then, and every day since. And at some point, I suppose it just became me. I still am afraid of what they might do to you, but… the truth is, Kuai, I am what they have made me. And I'm good at it. And..." And here was the part he had always been afraid to tell his little brother.

"And you like it." Kuai finished softly. Bi-Han looked at him, startled. Kuai turned to him. His eyes were sad, "I saw it in your eyes, back when you were trying to kill Li-heng Syun the first time. You were so different."

"That's where you're wrong. I was not different, Kuai. I am the same. You just choose not to see me that way."

"As a killer, you mean?!"

"Yes." Bi-Han said simply, "I don't stop being one when I come home. I am the same person. There is no duality in the choices I make, Kuai. I don't regret them because I made them in good faith, knowing they would protect you."

"Well maybe I'm not worth protecting?!" Kuai stood up in frustration. He saw Bi-Han's shoulders retract. He was surprised and hurt. _Good,_ thought Kuai, _it's about time he felt something._ "Did you never stop to think that maybe my life wasn't worth all those that you've taken?! That maybe other people were allowed to live and have lives to?!"

Bi-Han's face became a mask, as Kuai knew it always did when he was hurt.

" _Allowed to live_? I am not the arbiter of every life, Kuai Liang. I do what I am told. And I succeed because I am strong. I am strong to protect what I care for. Li-heng Syun understood this. She was strong. Just not strong enough. There is no permission or justice or right or wrong to live by. There are only those weaker than us, who we kill when they stand in our path, and those stronger than us, who we must serve until we become strong enough to replace them."

Kuai was still standing, looking down at his brother.

"Then what's the point?"

"What do you mean, _what's the point_? Isn't surviving enough?!"

"No." Said Kuai. And he thought of make-believe games of a pirate ship at sea, and the red tablecloth of the eighty-year old woman who did not want to be evicted from her home, and the tiny baby in Jia's sisters arms with its wide unknowing eyes, and cutting pak choi leaves to be placed in a pan that would feed a family of small faces all peering out from hidden spots to watch the television. He thought of Tomas' jokes waiting for him back home, and the autumn rain as he stood on the school roof all turning to snow, and jumping off ledges to punch schoolboys because they insulted his friend, and throwing stones into the sea and watching the crests break white on a stony shore, a sea that could not know human worries and yet somehow in its unending breakers took away frustration and anger and pain as all just became a passing moment next to the same rolling grey waves. "I want to live, Bi-Han. I don't want to just survive."

Bi-Han didn't know what to say to that. After all the years he had struggled just to keep them both alive, the revelation that for his brother that wasn't enough, cut him deep. It seemed as though Kuai did not understand what it had taken from him just to give that. And he wasn't sure he had anything left to give. He could feel himself getting angry. And not just a cool calculating anger, a proper emotional hurt that threatened to send him out of control. He got up, regulating his breathing to try and calm himself. There were snowflakes in the air. He wasn't sure who caused them, but he needed to get out. He grabbed the phone from the kitchen table and slammed the door behind him as he left.

Kuai stood in the dark of the room, unsure what to do or say or think. He sat down slowly, and took a slow, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes, and let his raging emotions become a storm around him. He became a center place of quiet in their midst. A hurricane whirled about him, but he was in its eye, where there was peace. Although he was afraid, and angry, and anxious, and guilty, he also felt a calm, because the things he had said felt right. And even though Bi-Han said there was no right and no wrong, to Kuai that did not seem true. And knowing that helped him feel that he was more one person and not fragments of a hundred frightened emotions all worried what his brother would say. In that moment, Kuai Liang felt more alone than he had ever done before, but he also felt more like Kuai Liang than he had ever done before, and that didn't seem altogether like a bad thing.

* * *

 **Author Note:** This hurt lots to write. These bros angry at each other really pulls me apart. I 100% feel both of them and their pain and justifications. This dark point in the story is important for trying to show their most fundamental differences for me though. For Bi-Han, survival has been so difficult, that its the driving force in all he does. Kuai's never had that binary fear of survival or death, so he's had the time to ask 'why' and 'should we?'.


	25. Peace and Belonging

Bi-Han got three paces out of the door before he came to a full stop. Nathaniel was in front of him. With him was Ben, Teddy, Royce, and Ray no longer hobbling from the gunshot to his leg.

"Nathaniel." Bi-Han said. He lowered his eyes in what might have been mistaken for deference, but it was more to put a quick wrap on his seething temper and rampant emotions from his argument with Kuai. "To what do I owe the pleasure."

Teddy stepped a fraction closer to him. Bi-Han was aware that they were shifting their weight slightly to flank him and make him feel uncomfortable. It was working, Bi-Han had an overwhelming urge to stick a knife through Teddy's throat.

"Well, Jinhai." Nat had a cigarette between his fingers and his dark glasses on, like he had the first time he came to Bi-Han's door, "We heard Li-heng Syun is dead. And now we're wondering exactly where that puts us, you, and my dear sister Gracie."

"I didn't tell Grace you asked me to kill Syun at her apartment, if that's what you're asking." Bi-Han found it hard to sound cool and collected. Kuai standing up to him had lit fires of anger inside him, and he hadn't counted on having to deal with Nathaniel now or anytime soon.

"So you lied to Grace?"

"It didn't come up." Bi-Han tried not to sound as tired as he was, "Grace was already suspicious of Syun."

Nathaniel drew a long pull in his cigarette and breathed out the smoke in a slow plume.

"It would be very inconvenient for me if Grace learned I'd tried to take out those close to her."

"Which is why I steered clear of telling her." Bi-Han couldn't keep the testiness from his voice. Ben folded his arms, making Bi-Han quickly reassess the situation. It was worth not making a scene out of this. And with Kuai still in the house…

"Might I have a private word with you, Nat?"

Nathaniel pushed his glasses up into his hair and flicked his cigarette end onto the street. He stubbed it out with smart shining shoes.

"Sure." Nathaniel waved at his gang to stay and moved a few paces off, giving him and Bi-Han some space.

Bi-Han smiled slightly, then leaned in close. Too close to be comfortable. Nat stiffened and Bi-Han could see Ben flinch at the threat from over Nat's shoulder.

"I kept quiet about the attempt on Syun's life you asked me to make. It didn't make sense to drive a stake between you and Grace when things were just resolving. I didn't have to that, and it could have gone badly for me if Grace found out what you asked me to do, but I stayed quiet. For you. But remember Nat, you gave me to her. And it's her I obey now. Which means the next time there's a conflict of interests I do what's good for her, not you. We're all on the same side now, we both work for Grace. But when last I checked, you weren't in any chain of command I have to answer to." His lips were quiet next to Nat's ear, "So if you ever come to my house and threaten me and my brother again, I will kill every person standing just over there." He nodded to the others. A mock friendly hand on Nat's shoulder turned him non-too gently to see where Bi-Han meant, "And I have a feeling that Grace won't really mind too much, as long as I leave you alive." He let go, stepped back and gave Nat a small bow, giving him the chance to extract himself without embarrassment in front of his peers.

Nathaniel looked uncertain for a moment, then smiled quickly. Bi-Han could see from the slight edge to his movements that he was afraid. _Good,_ was all Bi-Han thought.

"Good to catch up with you, Jinhai." Nat gave a small awkward wave, "Maybe we'll see you around sometime."

"Maybe." Bi-Han spoke with a stiff smile and no enthusiasm.

Ben gave Bi-Han a thoroughly dark glare as he followed the others into the out-of-place glistening bronze Bentley parked half on the curb. Bi-Han gave him a mild and absent look. As soon as the car door shut and the engine roared up the road, Bi-Han's mask dropped. He spat where the car had been and stormed off toward town, not looking forward to the overdue report he now had to give to Grace.

Kuai sat still for a long time. He breathed slowly, letting the air around him turn cold, not with anger but with quiet control. He let his thoughts move away into absence, and allowed himself simply to be in the present. He could hear many small sounds that he did not usually hear when meditating at the Temple. There was a continuous soft buzz of electricity, and the hum of appliances. Two taps were dripping out of sync with one another, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. Cars passed on the road. Voices exchanged on the pavement beyond the front door. A loud rasping car exhaust pipe sped off. Noises were both regular and irregular. And in that alternating wall of sound he found silence. He held that peace for a moment, then opened his eyes.

He stood up and went to the door. His outdoor shoes lay next to the door, just like they would if he were at the Temple. He slipped them on and stepped outside. He wasn't exactly sure where he was going. It was a warm day, but a thick wind off the sea buffeted at his face and cooled the temperature a little. He walked up the steps outside his apartment that led to the floor above. He hadn't been to any other floors before, and it felt strange to only be doing to after living nearly two months just downstairs. He knocked on the door of the flat above his.

An old lady appeared wearing a green apron, with wiry grey hair bound in a bun on her head and eyes lost in the crinkles of her face. Her face made even more crinkles when she saw Kuai.

"You're the little weasel who lives downstairs."

"Yeah." He admitted

"Very noisy weasel."

"My brother's a bigger, noisier weasel."

"Two weasels make much noise." Her eyes were still narrowed, "Fallen out with him?"

Kuai was startled by her directness. He looked down and nodded.

"Come in," She said, a fraction less grumpily.

Kuai shuffled into her kitchen, and immediately forgot his worries. The kitchen faced the same orientation as his below, but the windows had no curtains and were thrown open to let in bright light. Every surface was covered in long pots and trays brimming with plants. The wind blew through the house like they were still outside, bringing with it the fresh smell of the sea. There were swaying thin plants with bushy stems sprouting out their tops, and long trailing plants that snuck over the counter and down to the floor, and tall spindly plants who needed the support of strings hung from the ceiling.

"What's all this!?" Kuai was so surprised. He had never seen so many plants indoors before.

"Hmph." Said the old lady, "I grow my own vegetables."

"These are vegetables?!" Kuai stared. He couldn't see any vegetables, only green plants like in the woods behind his school. Before he had come to Hong Kong and seen whole vegetables in the supermarket, the only vegetables he knew about were the ones already cooked and served to him at meal times at the Temple.

The old woman gave him a quizzical look. She beckoned him over to a trailing mass of leaves and pointed into its mass and nodded. Kuai stared at her, not understanding. She gave him a look that reminded him of Bi-Han's impatient face. Kuai parted the leaves carefully. They were a little prickly and left tiny scratches on his hands. He looked at the old woman, not seeing anything other than more fat stems and broad flat leaves. He looked again, parting the leaves, unsure what he was looking for. He blinked in surprise when he saw a large fat courgette growing alongside all the stems. It looked so out of place that he reached in to see if someone had put it there as a joke. The vegetable was firmly attached to its stem.

"Twist and pull." The old lady said.

After much failed twisting and pulling, the old lady gave Kuai an iron pair of scissors. He freed the courgette and held it in his hands.

"Are there more hiding in there?"

"Find out." She said. "Stretch out your fingers." He did so. "If it's smaller than your handspan, let it grow. Bigger – then cut it."

The old lady pottered off. Kuai suddenly felt like an amateur in a room full of precious fragile things. He became anxious that he might ruin something and cut it wrong and deprive someone of their vegetable. The old woman's relaxed confidence in him and a curiosity to see it this strange bush was hiding any more secrets got the better of him. He began carefully moving the leaves apart, looking for more.

After he'd put six courgettes in a bamboo basket, he asked aloud,

"Is it a cucumber?" He was a little shy that it had taken him this long to work out what kind of vegetable this might be.

"No!" The old woman, who had been invisible, appeared from behind a row of strawberry bushes growing on the kitchen table. She had a look of affront on her face. "Weasels know nothing!" She beckoned him with a sharp reprimanding finger. Kuai with a little guilt and reluctance sloped over to her. Another row of trailing broad leaf plants were before him. They were spotted with yellow flowers and looked much the same as the plants Kuai had just been attending. He parted the leaves, looking with more confidence for cucumbers. He looked for a whole minute before looking up quizzically at the old woman.

"There's nothing here."

The old woman burst into a cackle of laughter, apparently taking a lot of amusement from Kuai's failure.

"Watch, little weasel." She pointed to one of the small yellow flowers. Just behind the flowerhead was a slightly thicker stem, shiny, green and smooth. Like a very small cucumber.

"How was I meant to find that!" Kuai gave, "It's pretending to be a flower!"

The old woman's eyes twinkled,

"Cucumbers grow behind the flower. Bigger and bigger until the flower dies, then it is time to pick."

"You know a lot about vegetables. I didn't even know there was this much to learn about vegetables."

"What do they teach you at school?" She tutted in disbelief.

"Uh like… how to paint your own face on paper. And some maths. And what people's insides look like."

"Hmph. You see someone's insides then they're probably dead. Why not learn about the vegetables you eat every day."

Kuai shrugged. He like the cool air in the kitchen and the calm that came of being surrounded by plants all growing and living their own quiet lives.

"I don't know. The things they teach at school seem kind of random. We also learn about lots of kings and queens who ruled a place called Commonwealth. I don't know where that is but it doesn't seem like lots of common people got wealth from it, otherwise why did they all want independence? Also there aren't any kings and queens in Hong Kong or China, but there's lots of cucumbers, so I don't know why we don't learn about those instead."

"Hmm. Pretty wise for a weasel."

Kuai looked around the kitchen at all the different plants. Small, fragile leaves shifted in the slight breeze, and their thin leaves turned different colours in the sun, lighting up like tiny green lamps.

"Hey… do you think I could come up here when I next…"

"… Fall out with you brother?" The old lady supplied. Kuai looked at his feet, "Do you fall out with him often?"

Kuai shuffled his shoulders awkwardly,

"You can probably hear through the floor." The lady gave a _harumph_ in response, and Kuai quickly went to his brother's defence, "It's mostly my fault. I keep messing things up for him: not doing as he says or not doing things good enough. I know I should be more respectful but-"

"Listen here young man," The woman set down a trowel and put her hands on her hips, "You be respectful when respect calls for it, but if you've got something to say then you damn well stick to it and don't let anyone push you around. You think I got to where I am today by being respectful all the time? Nuh uh, not a chance. I speak my mind."

"Not sure that's a good idea for me," Kuai muttered to his shoes.

"Oh it's a good idea alright, didn't say it would be an easy one! Now, you can come up here any time you like, but you better promise me you'll stick up for yourself!"

Kuai twisted his hands together,

"… You haven't met my brother… He's a lot bigger than me."

"There's always someone bigger. You got to do the thing that's right by in here," She tapped her chest, "And you got to not regret it. Or what's the point. Might as well be a cucumber." She threw a cucumber at him.

Kuai caught it,

"Definitely would be simpler if I was a cucumber." Kuai sighed and sat on a stool by an open window. He bit the head off the cucumber and spat it away, then munched slowly, enjoying the crunch and water in each bite. He sighed again, but this time it was freer.

Bi-Han was sitting back into a deep pile of cushions, letting the strain eke out of his muscles as he relaxed. The large lounge was lit by a number of crimson box lanterns with gold leaf trim. A half dozen courtesans reclined about the room also, smoking and talking lowly, giving the lounge a peaceful ambience of the kind that only exists in the true absence of work.

"How did that recipe work out for you, Jinhai?" Yi was a spindly man with impeccable style and a penchant for loose silk and dazzling make-up. Bi-Han was sure that Yi had mentioned to other courtesans the moment some days before when Bi-Han had flinched away from physical contact. All the workers at the brothel were intensely aware of body language in a way that Bi-Han found relieving. He could simply be and sit nearby others without anything intrusive or demanding required of him.

"Good." Said Bi-Han, without opening his eyes, "My brother was surprised I hadn't burned the house down. He even complimented the food."

"Did you bake a birthday cake as well?"

"No chance. Recipe looked like a complicated martial arts form only to be performed with fingers and mathematics."

Yi laughed. His laugh was high and infectious. A few others laughed with him, but Bi-Han didn't find it threatening like he might had they been his fellow Lin Kuei.

"I thought you liked a challenge!"

"Challenge? Your cake recipe looked more like witchcraft than it did food preparation. And there wasn't even any cutting. The bit with knives is the only bit I'm good at in cooking." The rest of the room listening in laughed at that, and Bi-Han smiled with them.

"Getting popular with the ladies, Zho?"

Bi-Han's eyes snapped open and a stiff alertness shot through his limbs.

Anton Kwan, the man Bi-Han believed to be the most irritating person working for Grace, had stepped into the lounge and shattered it's peace.

"Not all ladies here, Mr Kwan." Yi raised a vague floating arm from the cushion pile he was submerged in.

"You all dress the same. But hey, can't say I don't envy you, Zho. I'd like a little bit of action myself, but these stooges are only in it for the cash. Won't even give a colleague a bit of a free one."

Bi-Han stared at Anton. He was not quite sure how to respond to this. He was aware there was some important posturing going on and lots of sexual subtext, but he could not even begin to imagine the sort of response a regular civilian might give to this. When he saw Anton's stare still challenging him to respond, Bi-Han merely said,

"Okay..." In the most noncommital of tones. He had hoped maybe Anton would leave after this, but instead the man merely folded his arms and leant in the doorway.

"So what's your secret? How does a guy get in and close with the merchandise." Anton had a strange smile, as if perhaps he had noticed that Bi-Han was not a regular player when it came to this kind of banter.

Bi-Han gave Anton an uncomprehending look. He could feel a stiffness similar to his own in the posture of the courtesans around him. When he realised the situation wasn't resolving itself with his silence, Bi-Han said slowly,

"I don't think I care about the same things you care about. I'm just sitting down. In this room. And I don't really understand what you're talking about. I guess if you want to get on with people here, you could try talking to them instead of me."

"Please don't bother." Said Yi in a bored voice.

"You shut up!" Anton looked somehow flustered and red, as if he'd just realised he'd turned up to casual party in fancy-dress. "As if I'd be interested in talking to a _man._ "

"Could have fooled me," Bi-Han said under his breath, and a shared giggle rippled through the courtesans.

"Oh, laughing at me now?!" Anton's face was puce as he squared up and planted his hands on his hips, "Smart move, genius. Because guess what with Li-heng Syun out the way, that makes me unequivocally Grace's lieutenant, and puts all of you shits under me. So watch your fucking backs." He stormed out the room. Then, returned a second later, "Oh, Zho, by the way, Grace called for you ten minutes ago. So you're late." He left again.

Bi-Han remained seated for a moment.

"I'd kill him for free." He said out loud.

"Eh, we get ten a day like him," Said a petite woman in the corner. She wore traditional formal dress, but her robe was slit to above her thigh. "Kill them all and we'd be out of income."

"Death can be a lucrative business, you know." Bi-Han stood and stretched.

"Only once though," The woman said wryly. "A regular client is returning profit". Bi-Han tilted his head, conceding that. He took himself off down the corridor to Grace's office. He hesitated, then knocked.

Grace got up as Bi-Han entered. She took a long dark coat off the back of her seat and put it on.

"Am I keeping you from something?" She said cooly.

"No, sir."

"You took your sweet time coming."

"Sorry, sir. Lost track of time."

"Walk with me. I have an appointment with a fishmonger."

Bi-Han wondered what that was a euphemism for. He followed Grace back into the corridor. People parted like water before Grace. When she pushed open the door onto the back street, Bi-Han shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. The wind ruffled his hair. It was welcome after the smoke of the lounge.

"I hear Syun Li-heng is dead."

Bi-Han took a breath.

"I know you wanted me to hold off killing her."

"I did say that, didn't I. Funny. I thought maybe I'd imagined it." Grace had the same light tone of voice. Bi-Han trod carefully, unsure how this would play out.

"I… pushed a situation in which she'd have to reveal herself if she was police."

"And lost our client's reputation and the drugs and the money in the process. Well done, Zho. A quadruple combo of lost assets. And I was just starting to like you." She had a fast pace considering how much shorter she was. Bi-Han quickened his stride to keep up with her.

"I know it doesn't look good-"

"It doesn't." Grace took the steps down to their left, then turned into another back alley. Bi-Han wondered if she was leading him to a death squad hidden around the next turn. His eyes jumped at every clack of Grace's heels, mistaking them for guns loading.

"My brother told me she drove him to the police station." Bi-Han said quickly. He was making excuses. He hated making excuses, "She wanted my brother to testify about me to the police. They locked him in a room. When you called the station for his release, Syun was all ready to bring you down. Forgive me if a private assignment with her got my back up. I set up a situation to test her loyalties. I know how the police are with their own being killed. This way, the police killed her – no lasting vendetta on their end. I know I lost the money… and the drugs. But… she would have done so much more damage alive. I had to think fast. I know its not my place to, that I'm just here to-"

"-To do as you're told."

Bi-Han stopped. He was becoming more agitated by the tight winding backstreets they were taking.

"Keep walking." Grace said, without looking back.

Bi-Han's eyes searched the narrow walls either side of him. They were sheer brick, but the mortar was old enough that he could climb them. He couldn't climb faster than a bullet though. And the mission. He would lose it all it he had to run now.

"What can I do to make this right?"

"You can listen carefully in future. The police have violated the accord they have with the clan. They'll be getting the heavy treatment anyway, so discretion wasn't necessary when it came to Syun's death. If she was alive we could have fed her false information once it was confirmed she was police. This could have been handled low key. I could have money, drugs, a client who still buys, and a one up on the police. But instead I have none of this."

"Sorry." Said Bi-Han genuinely. He would have been pissed with himself had he been in Grace's position. And had his Lin Kuei credentials not been at risk of exposure, he certainly would have done things differently last night.

"See that you're more careful next time."

She rounded a corner and suddenly a bright sunlit market was before them. Steam rose in curls, blurring Bi-Han's senses and disorientating him. He swivelled left and right, steeling himself for an attack. Grace paused and looked back at him.

"Come. Fishmonger is this way."

Bi-Han followed her uncertainly, blinking and still checking in multiple directions, wondering where the executioners he had convinced himself were coming for him had gone.

He was still unsure what was going on when Grace stopped in front of a stall selling fresh fish. The scales winked a thousand colours and a thick raw pungence was in the air. Bi-Han flinched at the sound of a knife slamming into wood. A fish head bounced off a chopping board and onto the street, where it was gobbled up by a lean mongrel.

"On-Tou," Grace said as she stepped out of the steam pouring out of a noodle bar and up to the fish stall. She had her hands in the pockets of her long coat, and her hair tied up and functional. Bi-Han stepped into her shadow, vowing to stay close, silent, and not to blow this second chance.

The fishmonger went the pallid colour of his fish. He passed a tongue over his lip.

"M-Ms Yeung." He stammered. "I… don't suppose you're here for fish?"

"I _am_ after something slippery and unpleasant." She gave a cold smile. "On-Tou," She said again. She pulled the cleaver out from the chopping board and turned it over in her hands, "Yesterday, one of my lieutenants was shot in crossfire with police."

"I am very sorry, Ma'am." The fishmonger wiped his hands on his apron. He took a step back. Bi-Han folded him arms deliberately. The fishmonger stopped moving.

"The funny thing is," Grace continued to look at the cleaver, "They shot her by mistake. Before she died she claimed to be an undercover cop." The fishmonger swallowed. Grace went on at her own sedate pace, "So what I'm wondering is how the man I pay to make sure the police are keeping up their end of the bargain, managed to miss that a detective was undercover for several years in my ranks." Grace's eyes flashed. "What _have_ my family been paying you for, On-Tou? Because it seems to me you have a nice business going for yourself here: selling fish, being a police confidential informant, being a Triad informant, and… what?... taking extra bribes to keep quiet for the police?"

"N-nonono, ma'am" On-Tou raised his hands, "It's not like that. The undercover officers are very secretive. Barely anyone in the department knows, let alone a lowly CI like me."

"Ah. Alright. That makes sense." Grace set the knife down, "So you were useless to me from the start?"

"Wait, no- that's-"

"And you've been taking JFP money what, to spy on how many do-nuts are eaten?"

"Nono, ma'am. I have – I have information for you."

"Really."

"Yes, ma'am. I have a folder. Reports, dates, times, photographs even – I missed that they had an infiltrator in the clan, but in my notes, my photographs, you can see who is coming and going when – find out who ordered the under cover op. It will be very useful for you ma'am. I'll get it for you f-free of charge, not even you're uncle has seen it yet. It's just in the back ma'am… may I-?"

"I'm not stopping you." Grace said mildly. The fishmonger bowed low and pushed aside a plastic curtain into the back of the shop. "He's going to run." Grace said to Bi-Han.

"Really? Pretty elaborate story just to try and-"

There was a sound of cutlery clanging off the floor and crashing crates.

"I want him alive." Grace remained with her hands folded, "Don't let me down again, Zho."

Bi-Han tore open the plastic curtain and gave chase.

* * *

 **Author Note:** While on the plane to and from Tokyo I watched lots more Hong Kong crime dramas so lots more inspiration! Everyone around me watching comedies and pixar animations and I'm sitting their wincing as people get chopped up. Also. I really like growing vegetables. I find it kinda meditative. It helps sort my head out. I thought maybe Kuai would appreciate that too. Hopefully this chapter was somewhat calming after the last one. Now you can buckle up for a street chase.


	26. Those Caught in the Storm

The back of the fishery was wet with melting ice and slippery with scales and dribbles of offal. Bi-Han instinctively let a thin sliver of ice escape his hand to freeze the slick floor. Ice fractals bloomed into a white sheet so that he slid the corner easily. As he did, he caught the lintel of a side door and swung himself through and out onto the street. He glimpsed the fishmonger tear off his apron as he bulled through the back door of a hot wok stand. Bi-Han took off after him. He pushed into the kitchen of the street cafe. The air was thick with steam and hissing oil. The spite of onions hit his eyes and he blinked watering tears as he pushed passed cooks tossing vegetables and submerging steel grills in hot oil. His elbow knocked a the handle of a pan and its contents catapulted toward him. Bi-Han's arm was coated in ice before he could think, and boiling vegetables bounced harmlessly off him to roll on the floor. He caught sight of the ribbon in the fishmonger's hair fleeing through the far side door. Bi-Han barged through and got the door seconds later. The fishmonger was gone again. Bi-Han let his eyes scan quickly. There was another stall in front of him, the busy street to the right, and a small space to the left between the street wall and the stalls. His eyes snapped right. The ribbon twisted in amidst the street crowds. Bi-Han burst into the crowded street. The bulk of his shoulders carved up the crowd, cries of dismay littered left and right about him as people leapt from his path. The fishmonger was in view now. He turned and glimpsed Bi-Han coming for him. He gave a cry and dived into a thicker part of the crowd. Bi-Han's teeth clashed in anger. He drove apart the crowd with the sides of his fists. Someone hit the ground under the impact. Bi-Han leapt over them. An empty side street opened before him. A steel door banged back against the wall of a brick building then swung shut. Bi-Han ran to it and tore it open.

Inside was dark. Bi-Han's senses went up in a wall of caution. His eyes accustomed quickly and his head tilted, picking up strange sounds. There was tapping, like shuffling feet. Lots of feet. Like a crowd, save there were no voices, chatter or other sounds he expected. He frowned and reluctantly slowed his pace. He was in a darkened corridor with steps at one end. A faint purple light fell on the steps. The fishmonger was gone again. Bi-Han crept forward, he could not place the sounds he could hear. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up in confusion. The odd shuffling reminded him of the Temple: perfectly silent but for the step of feet and the snap of clothing as a class practised a martial arts form. This was different again though. All the sounds were off, there was no synchronicity or rhythm. He slipped up the steps and stopped. An immense hall was before him. Glittering silver mirror balls hung from the ceiling and threw an array of disorientating lights in all directions. Nearly a hundred people were in the room. There was perfect silence apart from the tap of their moving feet and the rustle of their clothes. They were dancing. In perfect silence. All at different times and in different ways. Some danced fast and light, some slow and swaying, some stomped heavily, heads nodding violently. Bi-Han shrunk from the sight, afraid and confused. He walked in the world of civilians easily because he understood their predictability and could manipulate it. This was like nothing the Temple had ever prepared him for. He looked about in distress. People everywhere danced out of time and in silence. There were heavy headphones over all their ears. Bi-Han took a step forward, then shied from the unnatural sight again. He glanced around, trying to understand the anomaly. There was a DJ at a sound station and a desk, like at many clubs Bi-Han had walked through. _But no sound,_ he thought in dismay, upsetting himself the more he witnessed the spectacle. On the far side of the dance hall, he saw a square of light open and a figure fleet through. The square of light began to fold shut. Like a blood hound mad with a new scent of a trail, Bi-Han sprang into the silent crowd, shoving the unnatural dancers away from him.

"Hey man, come on!" Someone said as he thrust through the crowd.

"Urgh, metalheads. They ruin it for everyone."

"What channel is he on, I love that energy!"

"Is he even wearing headphones?"

He burst through the nightmare and out into the afternoon sun. A steel fire-escape door swung shut behind him. He didn't stop or let himself think as he ran up a side street back onto the main road. His breathing was laboured, and his instincts all abuzz and in disarray, but he could feel the more primal part of him enjoying the chase. Wide broad grey steps marked the enormous entrance of a concrete building at the end of the main road he'd just joined. The fishmonger was gone again, with a lot more distance between them thanks to Bi-Han's freak out. The building or the street to the right. Which to take, which to take? The street to the right was sparse with people. In a split second, Bi-Han decided the building more closely met his target's pattern of escape. He sprinted up the broad steps into the concrete building. Cool air hit Bi-Han's skin. People were queuing at a counter over to his left. Bi-Han ignored that. He ran further into the building. It gave way to reveal an enormous room, dominated by a ring wall and a huge expanse of ice. Bi-Han paused for a second in confusion. People wearing strange boots with blades on the bottom were sliding around the ice anti-clockwise. There seemed to be a frozen lake indoors. What _did_ Hong Kong people do in their spare time? Bi-Han determined not to let these oddities distract him again. At the very far side of the room, he saw the ribbon in the fishmonger's hair. Without a second of thought spared, he leapt onto the ice.

And like that he was home. His movements became liquid and his feet ghosted over the ice. He wove between the skaters like water down a hill, easy as silk. He spun out the way of an off balance child, and was aware of people around him stopping to watch. He never let his eyes move from his target. He slid with a dancer's grace across the rink. The fishmonger was reaching for a back door. Bi-Han's eyes saw a knife lying on the side of the rink, he cut an expert path between two skaters, picked up the boot the knife was attached to, somersaulted off the ice and hurled it. The ice skate sailed through the air and its blade went straight through the fishmongers open hand, pinning it to the wall. The fishmonger screamed. For a moment bystanders were stunned by the acrobatics before them, then there was confusion and commotion. Security wardens sprang out of the shadows and made to help the fishmonger.

"Fuck off!" Bi-Han shouted at them as he ran toward his target. The guards were so surprised that they stopped. Bi-Han was aware of the press of attention on him, he snatched a pair of sunglasses from a bench scattered with socks, shoes and a handbag. He pushed the sunglasses on and strode up to his whimpering pinned victim. "Triad business." He talked down to the security guards. They hesitated a moment, sizing him up, and glancing back at the ice rink. Bi-Han reached into the back pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a roll of cash and tugged out a few notes and offered them. The security guards' eyes wandered to the ice skate through the man's hand and the thick fast blood streaming down his arm and dripping off his elbow, then to the cash in Bi-Han's hand. They took the money hesitantly, then backed away. Bi-Han gave them his best pleasant smile.

Bi-Han dragged his victim all the way back to his fish stall. He saw Grace had seated herself in a reclining wicker chair next to an open tea stall opposite the fishery. She set down her cup with a clink as he approached.

"Good." She said, "And alive too, well done." Grace stood.

Bi-Han straightened the fishmonger with a prod to the small of his back.

"I suppose you were running because you knew there was nothing else useful you could tell me." She stepped back over to the fishery. She nudged the large headless fish lying unattended on the chopping board. She picked up a knife from the table. She tested its point by pricking her finger. A bead of blood swelled on her finger tip. She drew the knife along the dappled silver belly of the fish. Its insides bloomed out, bulging, wet and fleshy pink. The fishmonger watched the process he must have done a thousand times himself with a fearful, captivated stare. Bi-Han was reminded of the one occasion he had seen a Lin Kuei deserter. He had been recaptured and brought before the Grandmaster. Bi-Han had been young, but he still recalled that dread anticipation stalking the deserter's eyes.

"Ms Yeung," The fishmonger started,

Grace put the knife to her lips like she might a finger,

"Sh."

With one hand she prised the fish open, and with the other she reached inside. Her hand squelched as she rooted around. Bi-Han watched with fascination as she kept eye contact with the fishmonger, taking mental notes of the effect. The fishmonger's face was very pale, but Bi-Han supposed that might be because the amount of blood he'd lost from his hand. The man was clutching it tight to his white overall, which were slowly turning red.

Grace withdrew her hand slowly, pulling out a thick red cord. She unwound the guts from the carcass like some kind of macabre fishing line. The intestine spilled over the counter onto the floor, until it tore free leaving her holding the fresh wet line. She beckoned with one finger. The fishmonger didn't move, but Bi-Han forced him, with one hand on the back of his neck and a knuckle to the base of his spine. Grace leant forward from where she sat on the counter, and draped the fish guts around the man's neck.

"I have something to confess," She said to fishmonger, "Although you are a double-crossing failure who has been playing my clan and leaching off them, I have a bigger concern than you. And that's that I need to send a message to the police loud and clear. I need to take out something close to them. Not an officer – that unites them and stokes up their fervour. But an asset? A civilian who snitches to them? The police get the message, _and..._ " She glanced around them, they were being given wide berth by passers-by who were shuffling past quickly with heads down, "The general public start to understand what happens to the those who talk to the Police about the Triads." The fishmonger's eyes bulged, and Grace's hand's jerked suddenly. She flung the remaining guts up over the steel crossbar holding up the front of the stall, then wrapped them round a standing pole. Using this new leverage she hoisted the man up, revealing a fierce strength for one so small. She heaved the line tight, so that the man's feet dangled in the air. The line stretched taut and tight and quivered with shuddering strain like a plucked harp string. The fishmonger's toes immediately scrabbled for the table to prop himself up as the guts about his neck began to choke him. Grace finished tying them off around the pole and nodded at Bi-Han. Bi-Han front kicked the table over. Fish, chopping boards and knives flew back into the stall. The fishmonger was left dangling and choking as he hanged above his own workplace. Grace picked up a tea towel from a tray at the tea house opposite and cleaned her hands. Street folk turned around and quickly walked away from the scene. The hot wok stall pulled down its shutter so as not to attract attention. Everywhere eyes averted as the man twitched in his death throws.

Grace turned to Bi-Han,

"Stay and make sure he's dead. Then leave him there. Let this be a sign to _others_ who wish to betray the Jade Fist Pact."

Bi-Han's breath caught in his throat at the insinuation. He was momentarily glad he was still wearing his stolen sunglasses.

"Tomorrow our war gains another front. Don't let your guard down around the Hong Kong Police. They no longer serve our purpose." She folded up the bloody tea towel and set it back on its tray. "Oh..." She said, mock casually, "Whilst I am aware that you set Syun up to expose her as police, that information hasn't filtered down the ranks too well. Some over enthusiastic street runners of mine got on tracing the emergency call that brought the police down on Syun. She was a well-loved lieutenant and not many know she was a police infiltrator. Hope you didn't place that call yourself, Zho, or you might find yourself the target of some unpleasant business."

Bi-Han felt his stomach turn. He kept his face even while his mind raced. He knew phonecalls could be traced. Which is why he hadn't placed the call himself. At the time it had been a worthwhile trade off, but now...

He waited until Grace had turned a corner in the street before gripping his head between his fingertips. He sent cold through his temple willing himself to think calmly. He paced back and forth. Grace's people would be going after Liwei. Liwei who had told him time and time again of how the darkness of Triad business could not be contained. Of how it spread everywhere like a thick noxious gas, seeping through the cracks once let in the front door. Liwei had picked him up from from home and driven him to work three times before deciding the detour was too much. On one of those occasions he'd had to stop off back at home to pick up his medication. The address was half lost in the depths of Bi-Han's brain, but it came tumbling to the fore now. He ran.

The city was a blur of meek sun on half shadowed streets and dull rush hour traffic waiting with pumping exhaust in long jams. Sweat was seeping down his spine when he stopped before the apartment block. He let a chill of ice flush over his skin, then ran for the door. He found Liwei's family name on the call buzzers at the door.

He buzzed.

No answer.

He buzzed again.

No answer. _Fuck._

He tried the main door. Locked fast. It was heavy too, and strong. He ham-fisted all the buzzers, hoping someone would pick up.

" _Let me in!"_ He snarled in Mandarin. Unsurprisingly, no one was forthcoming.

He checked Liwei's house number on the buzzer, only two floors up. He stood back, giving himself a run up. He ran, planted a foot on the wall and used it to boost a leap up to the concrete balcony floor of the level above. He pulled himself up, muscles straining as he lifted his own bodyweight. He crouched on the balcony wall, tilting his head as he checked the next jump. He crouched low, then jumped, catching the level with his fingers, and pulling himself up to the next floor. He straightened. Before him was flat 5. He needed 10. He ran along the balcony as the numbers increased. He could feel the hairs standing up on his arms, and cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck.

He stopped.

The door to number 10 was hanging off it's hinges. Transphobic graffiti stretched stark and crass across the whole front of the apartment. Bi-Han felt fear curl in his chest. He had never felt that for any one but himself and Kuai before, and possibly Tomas Vrbada. He stepped gingerly into the apartment, knocking as he did on the crooked door.

"Hello? Liwei?"

There was smashed crockery and strewn linen on the floor. Bi-Han been on missions where he had walked barefoot before through the cut glass of massacres orchestrated by his own hand as the sirens of police cars zoned in on his location. His heart beat louder now than it ever had on any mission. The sound of crockery cracking under foot was loud in the silence.

"Liwei?"

He heard a croak. He started in its direction. Behind an upturned chair in a ruined living room lay a body. It was curled in on itself.

"Liwei!" Bi-Han dropped next to him and brushed the hair from his face. There was blood, lots of blood. _Shallow head wounds bleed disproportionately._ An unhealthily optimistic part of him crawled out from wherever it usually hid. He checked Liwei's pulse. It was faint, but steady. "It's alright," He said gently, not knowing if the man could hear him. He pulled out his phone. Who would he ring? The police? The Jade Fist Pact? The Lin Kuei? Bi-Han had made Liwei and enemy of them all when he asked him to place that call. _Idiot._ He cursed himself. _Selfish._

He picked Liwei up carefully in his arms. The man groaned slightly. Bi-Han spoke in a soft voice. It was a voice he's only ever used to comfort Kuai Liang when he was very young and afraid. It was a voice for dark thunderstorms and harsh Lin Kuei punishments, the kind meant to soothe animal fear more than anything else.

It took Bi-Han forty minutes to walk to the hospital. As soon as Liwei was on a gurney, Bi-Han was anxious to leave. He could see armed security officers at the main entryways and exits of the hospital, and Liwei's beating was attracting attention from the doctors as possible gang-related violence. Bi-Han passed what relevant information he could onto the nurse, then ducked out of commotion just when security were becoming too interested. A hole welling with guilt opened within him as he left Liwei on his own. He remember how Royce had insisted he stay with Ray when he was shot. Some friend Bi-Han was.

Bi-Han stopped by a hardware store, then returned to Liwei's apartment. He first took the hinges off the front door silently. He was good at taking doors off silently. He'd never put a door back on before, but by reversing the process and hounding himself with a forceful mixture of self-loathing and perfectionism, he got the front door back on straight. He swept up the broken crockery with a broom he found in a cupboard. He set the furniture upright and put the cushions back on the chairs. He stood up fallen picture frames and tried to put objects he could see no point or use in in suitably aesthetic places. He cleaned the blood stains from the floor by easily mixing up the required chemicals from household items. All Lin Kuei were taught to cover their tracks. Bi-Han had never imagined using these skills in this way though. After this, he took a hot water and sponge and scrubbed the graffiti from the front of the house. When he finished, he stood back and look at what he had done. What he had done. He closed his eyes.

He walked back inside the house and into the kitchen. Everything was clean and still. Like nothing had ever happened. A low breeze was fluttering through the curtain at the kitchen window. Pans were still drying on the rack. He pulled the roll of cash out of his pocket again. He snapped the elastic band off it, remembering how Liwei had instantly known that rolled cash had been Triad when he saw it in their restaurant. Bi-Han tried to flatten out the notes, but they kept curling up, as if he could not rid them of their criminal stink. He stuffed the notes under an upturned opaque cup drying on the rack. Then he left.

* * *

 **Author note:** I saw a silent disco from the outside and thought it would be a cool setting for a horror scene. But I don't write horror so I shoved it into the middle of a crime drama chase in a mortal kombat fanfic. I learned a lot more than any vegetarian could ever wish to about fish guts for this chapter.

In Crime and Punishment there's a vivid moment where the murderous protagonist wants to help a family. He knows they will never take his money so he leaves it in a jar on the windowsill. Idk Bi-Han strikes me as a bit of a Raskolnikov. If he'd stop being so destructive to himself and everyone around him for a second he might find some redemption.


	27. Avenue of Hope

It had been three long months, but the tides were finally turning in their favour. The Jade Fist Pact had been waging a city-wide guerilla warfare that had stretched the police department to breaking point. Grace had spearheaded the tactics, pulling the rug from under police informants, cutting off the good will that existed between the public and police, running smear campaigns and rumours, letting everyone know that to talk to the police would bring Triad power down on your neck before you could be moved to witness protection. She'd let Nat run wild with his own petty ideas too. He had no consistency, but was always imaginative. Last Friday every precinct vehicle had had all its tires punctured, the week before he'd set a car bomb off in front of the central police station. All glamour and no tact, but in amidst Grace's workings, it became fireworks over a battlefield, and just the display they needed.

Bi-Han leaned back on the sofa. He'd ditched Nat's gaudy style a long time ago, and now affected a simple crisp black suit and the same dark sunglasses he'd swiped in the ice rink as he ran down one of Grace's targets. He was comfortably silent as he sat in the room with Grace's lieutenants. Nat was there, but he was deliberately avoiding Bi-Han's eye. The status between them was a little hazy. As Grace's enforcer, Bi-Han certainly didn't answer to him. Bi-Han's reputation had elevated him to a position where he need not answer to anyone save Grace. He could sense that that made Nat's awkward and unsure around him, perhaps even a little jealous.

"Well..." Grace had just entered, she hung near the doorway. She never needed to make a show of rank. The room always bent to her will regardless of how she held herself. An uncharacteristic smirk was playing at the corner of her mouth. It was good news then, Bi-Han knew. "I just got a call from Chief Inspector Cheng. He wants to talk an armistice."

A cheer went up from from the room. Nat gave a whoop and put his feet up on the coffee table.

"When you meet, ask for an itemised copy of the receipt they spent on car tires this week." Nat grinned and others chuckled with him.

Bi-Han relaxed, using the anonymity of the sunglasses to let his gaze rest on the ceiling. If there was an armistice he would be back to standing in shadows and silence. It was good news, and meant he could focus on infiltrating higher ranks in the clan, but he had been enjoying terrorising the Hong Kong underworld. He supposed the high profile murders would stop too.

The meeting was mostly congratulatory. Grace's wing of the JFP were making preparations for peace time. Priority was going back to profit. New responsibilities were handed out, merits, promises, and promotions went around liberally. Nothing for Bi-Han. His position was a little different to the others in the room. They all had their own smaller branches to care for, and spoils to share amongst their own. Bi-Han watched as they filed out of the room at the end of the meeting, revelling in their newest snatch of power. Grace remained perched on the arm of a settee. When the door finally swung shut, only she and Bi-Han were left in the room.

"You're not pleased by news of an armistice?"

"I am made for war."

She smiled at him. It was one of her few genuine smiles. Bi-Han had only got them in the last few weeks.

"There will always be another war."

"And in the mean time…?"

"You want me to produce an unending string of people for you to torture. All things come to an end, Zho."

"I didn't say that-" Bi-Han said quickly. This was sounding familiar to many conversations he had had with the Grandmaster. Ever when he came home from a dangerous mission, he was immediately restless, purposeless, and his frustrations built up quickly. He began to think too much, and thinking made his world collapse. He needed to be always acting, and not thinking about what it was he did each day.

"Relax. I have a mission for you."

Bi-Han sat up,

"You do?"

"Remember that dock I sent you to – your very first kill for me?"

Bi-Han nodded.

"I want you to head back there. Spy on Stanley Mah, the son of the dock manager you killed. The kid's up to something. I heard from my uncle they're chalking up big import tariffs. I want you to check they're not importing problems for the JFP. Makes sure it's all square and not going to be the next big pain in our ass."

Bi-Han nodded again. There was silence between them. After a bit, Grace said,

"There's more you want to ask."

Bi-Han hesitated. He spoke carefully,

"Have you… thought any more on my request?"

"To meet with my father. Yes. I know you have ambitions to climb the ranks, Zho. But my father is not an easy man to get on with. He is old and traditional, and that is how he likes those close to him. He will not see your value as I do."

"It doesn't have to be like that. Not at first anyway. If I could just be in the same room as him, then I could start to understand what he wants."

A look came across Grace's face. Bi-Han could not read it, but he knew it was thoughtful.

"I shall see what I can do. But for now – Stanley Mah." She slid a picture of him over the coffee table. Bi-Han recognised the angry youth who had stormed out of his father's office in the docks. "Just intelligence for now. Don't get carried away."

Bi-Han picked up the photograph and tucked it into his inside pocket. He gave her a carefree grin.

"Of course."

Kuai Liang hovered by the doorway to the kitchen. A slightly crumpled letter was in his hand. He had been putting this off for some time. He flattened the letter against himself, trying to smooth out the creases and make it look like the letter hadn't been in his bag for a week.

"You're hovering." Bi-Han had his back to him as he stirred a pan on the stove. Somehow he could always feel Kuai's indecision.

Kuai stepped slowly into the kitchen. His fingers fiddled with a corner of the envelope.

"There's um… There's a thing from school." There was silence. Some weeks ago it had been agreed that the spheres of their undercover lives would remain as separate as possible. Kuai and Bi-Han's relationship had become strained after the death of Syun Li-heng. There was almost always quiet in the house now, a quiet that Kuai did his best to maintain, fearing the alternative would be a fiery argument he would definitely loose.

Bi-Han turned and looked at him. Kuai immediately shrunk from his attention. Bi-Han held out his hand. Kuai quickly gave him the letter before he lost his nerve.

There was silence save for the crinkle of opening paper. Kuai kept his eyes on his feet.

Bi-Han looked over the top of the letter,

"What's a _parents' evening_?"

"It's where you got to meet the teachers to ensure I am performing up to standard." He tried not to make that line sound as rehearsed as it was.

"I'm not your parent."

Kuai looked up. Unsaid things were on his lips, like 'could you please this once pretend to be my normal family the way everyone else does', but then he thought of the trouble that would come of it. Bi-Han was working hard on a long and draining mission. He needed Kuai's support, not to be petitioned for insignificances like this. He schooled his face to hide his dismay.

"Sorry." He reached for the letter. It needed a signature to say his guardian had read it, but he could forge that like he had others before. Bi-Han held it up out of reach.

"Why are you showing me this? We agreed: you have nothing more to do with Triad business, and I stay away from your school."

Kuai felt suddenly foolish and exposed. He sorely wished he had kept the letter to himself. He reached for the letter again, he needed it back to hand into school. He could feel himself getting upset under the inspection.

"It's nothing. Like you said, I shouldn't have shown it to you." He reached again, but Bi-Han's hand held the letter higher, "Bi-Han, please, can I have it back? I promise I won't bother you again."

"You want me to attend." Bi-Han supplied. Kuai started. His brother had ingenuity and insight, but these days it was rarely directed anywhere but towards his mission. Kuai came second to everything else.

Kuai floundered for a moment, then his voice went hard.

"What I want doesn't matter. You have your mission and that takes priority." He grabbed for the letter, fingertips scrabbling at its edge. Bi-Han kept it just out of reach.

"If you want something from me, stop cowering and say it."

"I'm not _cowering,_ Bi-Han. I'm just not interested in having an argument with you. I'm respecting your authority like you keep telling me to, now _will you give me that letter!?_ "

"Yes." Bi-Han said.

"Then stop holding it out of my reach!"

"Not yes to that, yes to the question you haven't asked."

Kuai stopped reaching and looked at his brother. He looked suddenly bashful and sullen all at the same time.

"Will you come to this stupid parent's evening thing?" Kuai muttered into the floor.

"Exactly. That question. Yes, I'll come. Things are quieter with the JFP at the moment anyway." Bi-Han set the letter down and produced a pen from his smart suit pocket with a flourish. He signed the letter and handed it back to Kuai. Kuai took the paper reverently. He looked at the signature, then at his brother, not quite sure want to say. Feeling somewhat emotional, he quickly put on a scowl and said,

"You needn't have made such a fuss about it."

He stalked back into the bedroom. When he was out of sight he sat on his futon and looked at the letter again. A small relieved smile crept onto his face. He held the letter to him.

Kuai's feet stepped in Bi-Han's shadow as climbed they path up from the road to his school. His brother looked older somehow, and it wasn't just the neatly trimmed light beard and moustache he now wore, or even his hair, now long enough to comb back and lie slightly ruffled on his head. He fitted in his suit. Bi-Han never normally fitted in civilian wear. He always looked like he was born wearing formal Lin Kuei dress, collar done up high and severe fastenings pulling the uniform taught across his chest. He strode easily up the concrete steps. He looked back down at Kuai through his now customary dark glasses.

"Hurry up, squirt."

"Don't call me rude stuff while other people can hear." Kuai chided. Bi-Han gave him a wry grin and Kuai dared to hope that maybe things could be easy again between them.

Bi-Han hesitated when he entered the gym hall. There were lots of desks with teachers and name tags at each. About the room, a menagerie of gangly youths and tired parents were milling. Bi-Han felt that sudden out of place urge to run, like he was entering Grace's headquarter brothel for the first time again. He felt Kuai's small hand touch his hand, trying to reassure him without awakening his ire. He pulled back his shoulders and approached this as he would any other mission.

"What is required of me?"

Kuai dug in his pocket and pulled out a printed grid covered in handwriting.

"I made appointments with the teachers. These in this column are their names, and this is the subject they teach, and here is the time you're meant to meet them."

"It's all in English."

"I wrote it at school – I have to write in English at school, I can write it out for you quickly if you w-"

"No… I'll manage." Bi-Han took the paper. It had been a long time since he had to read English. "Where are you going?" Kuai had begun to walk to one side of the hall.

"I thought – I mean they're going to be saying stuff about me. I was going to stand here at the side… Do you need me to point out the teachers for you?"

"No… no. I can match up these words to their name tags."

" _These_ words." Kuai corrected. Bi-Han had been pointing at the list of subjects instead of names. "Unless you wanted to try and find Mr History." He laughed nervously.

"Oh gods I don't have to talk to that history guy do I? I last met him just before a drug raid while I was pretending to drink cocktails."

Kuai was a little put out,

"Um… Mr Martin is on the sheet but… your mission comes first, so if there's something that-"

"Whatever I'll handle it."

Kuai watched as Bi-Han strode towards the desks, squinting at the paper. He let himself smile slightly. Bi-Han was trying for him, and just then that meant more than anything in the world.

Bi-Han checked a big clock in the gym hall, then planted himself in one of two chairs as soon as they were vacated by the last couple. The teacher before him had a name plate that read "Dr Ho". A queue of two parents on his left tutted loudly as he jumped their queue.

"16:05," He pointed to the clock, "My appointment." The upstaged parents muttered and shuffled away darkly. "Hello. I'm here for Zho Tao." He said in unapologetic Mandarin.

"Okay..." The teacher began shuffling papers, and brought out a table filled with numbers, "Zho Tao, Zho Tao. Ah yes, Tao. Quiet boy, very polite."

"Doesn't sound familiar." Bi-Han quipped. The teacher gave him a faint smile.

"I teach Tao chemistry, and last term-"

"What-istry?"

"Chemistry." She said patiently, as if repeating the word would clear up the problem. Bi-Han felt like he was expected to know what that was, so he nodded as if he understood. "And last term Tao performed well. He has a very inquisitive mind, on track for an A, I should think."

"A what?"

"Sorry?"

"You said he's on track for a-…?"

"An A, Mr Zho. You're familiar with how our grading system works, aren't you? You've been looking at Tao's weekly chemistry test results. Here… a little reminder – they have your signature on." She passed over a stack of sheets. The sheets had letters on that didn't form words and were put into puzzles the way numbers were for sums. He recognised Kuai's handwriting spelling out answers under each question, and in the forged signature as well. At least there were mostly ticks down the side.

"Right." He said. At the bottom of one sheet a large 'A' had been circled. "Is A at the top or the bottom?"

"The top, Mr Zho."

"Good."

There was quiet for a moment. Then the teacher added,

"Tao especially enjoyed our module learning about extreme cold temperatures."

Bi-Han's eyes narrowed,

"Did he now?" He glanced over at the side of the room. Kuai gave him an anxious smile from a distance and a small wave.

"He's a very conscientious pupil. Very eager to learn."

"Hm." Bi-Han had unfolded his timetable. "Oh I have to go and meet Ms Biology now. 16:10. Bye." He got up and stalked the desks looking for his next target.

When Bi-Han sat down in front of Ms Biology, who was actually called Ms Feng, he was well prepared this time,

"What do you teach Tao in your biology lessons?"

"Oh all sorts," She smiled. "Last term we were looking at human anatomy." Bi-Han's eyes lit up with a fell light.

"I hope Tao excelled in this."

"Well, yes, he certainly knows a lot about the different organs and where each is, but we were focussing on how these organs form functioning smaller systems within one body – like the respiratory system-"

"Cut off the windpipe and they stop breathing – did he pass all that ok?"

A flicker of surprise cross the teacher's face at Bi-Han's choice of words,

"Well, yes, for the most part, although Tao could do with working on things like – how is the pancreas important-"

"But it's not really that important, is it. You can live without it. I don't care if he doesn't know that stuff."

"Mr Zho, all knowledge is important-"

"No it's not. Important knowledge is important. The rest just clogs up your brain cells with useless information. Have you seen this list of subjects?" He turned his page with appointments around to show the biology teacher, "Some fucker is trying to teach my brother _art_!"

By half past four, Bi-Han found himself sitting down heavily before Kuai's art teacher. His face was a black scowl, but before he could speak, the art teacher started,

"Whilst it's true that I can teach students techniques to improve, what most people don't know is that art is a reflection most of all of what is inside. Discipline comes from one's own practice, motivation comes from one's own strength, and what is unique comes from the expression and explosion, if you like, of one's own experiences."

Bi-Han stopped, caught off guard by this.

"Tao is someone who has struggled all his life. I can see that in the way he moves a brush on the page, in the same way I could see from your expression when you sat down, Mr Zho, that you do not think you appreciated the teaching of art in school." Bi-Han opened and shut his mouth, and elected instead just to listen. The teacher continued, "Tao is often alone. Especially since his friend Jia stopped attending classes. He is quiet, and throws himself into his work to stave off interaction with others." That sounded painfully familiar. Bi-Han gave a wince of a smile and said nothing. "I worry for him. It's good for people his age to relax, have friends, laugh. But he's very serious all the time, and silent. Even when he paints. Especially when he paints. Sometimes he seems to have a look of such intense anger on his face… Is everything alright at home? Does Tao seem distant with you?"

Bi-Han was quiet and unsure of himself,

"I… he… Things have been difficult between us recently." He couldn't believe he was confiding this in a stranger. He looked over at Kuai standing at the edge of the hall. When he saw Bi-Han looking over Kuai beamed, gratitude glowing in the smile.

"He thinks a lot of you," Said the art teacher, watching the exchange.

"Too much." Bi-Han said before he could stop himself. Then, roughly, "He should find other role models."

"Give him a little more of your time," The teacher said gently, "That's all he wants."

Bi-Han nodded. He didn't look the teacher in the eye as he stood to leave the brief exchange. He felt somehow scolded, and ashamed.

Last on his list was Mr Martin.

"Hello Mr Martin, head of year seven." Bi-Han didn't bother to remove the expression of irritation that had fixed on his face when he saw the next name on his list.

Mr Martin immediately went bright red and quickly went through his notes. Bi-Han realised that in all likelihood, attending a party that had been raided on national news for drugs was a damn sight more embarrassing for Mr Martin than it would be for him. A slow smile spread across Bi-Han's face, maybe he could enjoy this after all.

"How did you enjoy the rest of your evening at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant? You know, as one of the locals. Personally invited."

Mr Martin flashed a strained awkward smile,

"Very good thank you, Mr Zho." He shuffled his notes, and opened his mouth to get down to business.

"My cocktail was exquisite. Really high quality. Were you on cocktails or…?" He left the question open ended, but thankfully Mr Martin read in the worst possible meaning Bi-Han had fully intended.

"I-I was just there to support my student. I d-did not partake in any revelries that night – I am an upstanding member of the community and it horrified me that Mr Wong-" Mr Martin's eyes shifted sideways to a character sitting a few desks away chatting to teachers. Bi-Han realised with a chill that Mr Wong himself was here in the room. So much for leaving Triad matters out of the school. Mr Martin continued in a low voice, "It horrified me that Mr Wong would keep that company and allow the taking of recreational substances at a respectable function. I assure you I stayed well away from everything and didn't even know… substances were passing hands until the police showed up."

Bi-Han had a slow, wide grin.

"Please stop smiling like that, Mr Zho. And please let's not talk of this any more. Defending myself from such disgraceful implications could well lose me my position here."

Bi-Han was enjoying himself.

"Sure. Whatever you say, Mr Martin, head of year seven."

Mr Martin pulled out a sheet.

"Now, Tao Zho."

"Zho Tao." Bi-Han corrected.

"Your brother is one of our star pupils."

Bi-Han frowned,

"Huh?"

"Since he stopped playing truant with that Jia Li-heng, he's put his head down and worked his way to the top of every class. Quite impressive given that he came to us being unable to speak English or Cantonese. Here are his grades." Mr Martin turned a sheet round for Bi-Han. _Tao Zho_ was written at the top, with a list of subjects. A line of ' _A'_ s ran down the right column.

"Every class?" Bi-Han asked, "Even kem-… kem-"

"Even chemistry, yes. And history too, my own subject. He just absorbs all this knowledge, like he's never had a chance to learn before. Quite a remarkable child. Every pupil spends at least part of a class looking disinterested and like they're thinking about what's for lunch. But not Tao. He looks like he's chosen to spend every minute exactly where he is."

Bi-Han was quiet. Eventually he said,

"Does he have any trouble? Problems in class? Any… friends?"

"He was thick as thieves with Jia Li-heng, but no other close friends I've noticed. He still has run-ins with Nianzu Wong, but nothing like early in the first term."

Bi-Han's eyebrows went skyward, he tried not to show his ignorance.

"Right. I see. Nianzu Wong. Would that be…?" He nudged his head toward where Mr and Mrs Wong, disgraced business entrepreneurs, were sitting and smiling as they talked to the mathematics teacher.

"Mm." Said Mr Martin stiffly and painfully, "The same."

"And their kid… had run-ins with my-…?"

"I have some pretty strong suspicions that things got physical last term, but not enough to bring up the affair with them. Things seem to have calmed down a bit now that Jia Li-heng isn't about, but its clear Nianzu and Tao have no love for one another."

Bi-Han nodded. He stood. As an afterthought, he added,

"Can I have that?" He pointed to the sheet with all Kuai's grades.

"I… yes, I suppose. I can always print another off. Take it."

Bi-Han folded up the sheet and placed it in his inside pocket.

"Good to see you again, Mr Martin, head of year seven."

Bi-Han excused himself and walked up to where the Wong's were seated. Kuai's eyes bulged and he exchanged a look of horror with Mr Martin, before hurrying toward Bi-Han.

"It's Mr Wong, right?" Bi-Han inserted himself promptly into the appointment taking place.

Mr Wong looked up with casually arched imperious eyebrows. He was a man of sharp refined taste, from his gleaming dark shoes to his carefully trimmed moustache. He was dressed impeccably in a suit that was attempting to be casual, but that was too expensive to convincingly complete the effect.

"Excuse me?" Mr Wong's voice was cold.

"We were business associates until recently! Can I have a quick word? Sorry to intrude." Bi-Han smiled pleasantly at the stunned teacher and pursed lips of Mrs Wong.

"I am in the middle of an appointment." Mr Wong said sharply.

"Funny that's actually kind of where things left off between our businesses. We were mid-transaction when all of a sudden-"

Mr Wong stood abruptly, gave a small bow to the teacher and touched his wife on the shoulder, whispering some placating word. He moved angularly off to one side. Bi-Han followed him, and as he did, saw Kuai out of the corner of his eye. He stilled his brother with a warning stare. Kuai hovered mid way across the gym hall, anxious and agitated.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion!?" Mr Wong demanded.

"Your carelessness cost the Jade Fist Pact a lot of money and valuable product."

Mr Wong's eyes darted around the room, his eyes were black and furious.

"You dare come here, to my son's school to-"

"I go where I like. But as it happens, my brother attends this school." He nodded his head towards Kuai standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, "That gawking shrimp over there. Your son's been causing him problems. Get your son in line, or I will come and take what you owe the Jade Fist Pact out of what little remains to you."

Mr Wong stared at Bi-Han.

"Something unclear?" Bi-Han said mildly.

Mr Wong drew himself up,

"I'm done with the Triads. I'm done with all of you. You will have no more power over me."

"I'll have a lot of power over your windpipe if I pick you up by the throat right here in front of everyone. We could demonstrate the finer functions of the respiratory system for the biology teacher. Ah-" Bi-Han's eyes were dark with the thrill of the threat, "That would mean another scandal for the Wong Empire, wouldn't it?"

"You'd be arrested." Mr Wong spat, "And with the lawyers I can hire – in prison for a long time."

"Yeah. About that. Just in. War's over. Between the JFP and the police. But test me if you're not sure." Bi-Han smiled.

Mr Wong's face had a cold arrogance to it that looked like it was physically pained by being one-upped by someone.

"I will speak to Nianzu." He muttered.

"You will keep him in line." Bi-Han snapped.

Mr Wong nodded in sullen tacit assent. He straightened and stalked back to his seat, pulling his chair our far more violently than necessary.

Bi-Han strolled amiably back across the hall, he place an arm around Kuai's sinking shoulders.

"All done here, little brother. You've got the walk home to explain art, forged signatures, and who the hell Nianzu is."

Kuai finished swallowing the tail of a large bunch of noodles he'd just stuffed into his mouth. Bi-Han's cooking was improving. He peered over his dinner bowl as he sat at the kitchen table. Bi-Han was reading a sheet of paper. He was always reading. His mind was always on the mission, perfecting future moves.

"Are you really not mad that I forged your signature?"

"My fake signature, you mean?"

 _Fair answer_ , Kuai thought.

"And you're not mad I got in a fight last term?"

"Only that you needed a girl to help you fight."

"I was helping _her_. It was _her_ fight. And she could have taken them on her own."

Bi-Han set down the page he was reading, Kuai squinted at it. His cheeks flushed when he realised it was a list of his grades from school. He felt a pang that he had assumed Bi-Han was working on his mission again.

"You didn't tell me you could do all this..." Bi-Han gestured at the page, then twirled a stack of noodles on his chopsticks.

Kuai shrugged,

"Just doing what you said. Going to school. Trying to learn some things. Staying out of trouble."

"You know a hell of a lot more than me. I don't even know what chemistry is."

Kuai blushed properly now, and stammered to correct the unheard of compliment,

"It's just a fancy word, Bi-Han. You already know it all anyway. Stuff like what happens when you add liquids together, or when things boil, its simple stuff really."

"And what's trigono- trig-"

"Trigonometry. It's just fancy maths. It's just measuring angles. Like you do whenever you throw a weapon. Adding up angles and that."

"Adding them up?"

"Like how all the angles in a triangle add up to 180."

"180 what?"

"Degrees. Half a circle. If you put all the angles together in a triangle you get the amount that takes you a semicircle."

"What's the point in knowing that?" Bi-Han snapped.

Kuai was careful in his answer, knowing that his brother hated being found ignorant.

"Well you can use it to measure other stuff. Could be really useful for advanced cryomancy. If you're jumping off something and shooting ice to guide your fall elsewhere." He could see Bi-Han was interested but wary of being found lacking. Bi-Han had never been allowed to go to school. Not like the chance he had set up for Kuai. "Maybe we can get some books into the Lin Kuei library on it. I'm sure the Grandmaster would approve."

"Maybe." Bi-Han said quietly. He was looking again at the grade sheet. "I knew you'd be good at this stuff." He said suddenly. "You're always thinking more than you should in your forms. You ask too many questions of the Lin Kuei. And your doubts make you fall behind. But I always knew there was more you could do. The Lin Kuei holds you back."

Kuai stared at his brother. He had never heard him speak this way before. Kuai wasn't sure what to say.

"What happened to your friend? Li-heng." Bi-Han moved on like his comment had been nothing. He picked up a pea between the fine tips of his chopsticks and place it in his mouth.

Bi-Han had never asked about Kuai's friends before. Kuai shrugged.

"Jia? I didn't see her again after the news. I don't even know if she's alive." He hadn't meant to sound so bitter.

"We didn't kill Syun's family." Bi-Han said immediately. He hadn't meant to phrase that quite so bluntly.

The brothers looked at each other. The raw topic between them was open and laid out as it hadn't been properly in months. Kuai, as always, was the first to apologise.

"I'm sorry for blaming Li-heng Syun's death on you. I know you did it to protect the Lin Kuei. To protect me."

"I'm sorry I hurt you and those you care about." Bi-Han was quiet for a moment. Then he added, "I'm sorry I don't know how to care for people the way you do. And all that other stuff you said. I don't know how to do any more than what I do. It takes so much even to just-"

"It's ok, Bi-Han." Kuai gave him a small smile, "I know you give a lot. I don't want anything more from you. You do so much for me."

Relief flooded Bi-Han's eyes. He had been restless for weeks with the thought that his efforts weren't enough to keep Kuai from hating him. That his brother would see him forever as a monster.

Kuai smiled a little sadly,

"Thank you for always watching out for me."

Bi-Han nodded quickly but said nothing.

There was quiet as they finished dinner, but for the first time in a long time, it was an easy, peaceful quiet.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Something a little gentler.

This chapter marks the start of what I think of as the final third of the story!

I love reading reviews and comments, they help me keep motivated to write more, so please do drop a message if you're reading and enjoying :)


	28. Unorthodox Weaponry

It was late as Bi-Han pushed open the door to Grace's headquarters. He did a double take. Nothing before him looked the same. He backed out of the door and checked the building exterior. Definitely the same haunt, although admittedly he'd never seen the neon signs lit up like this. A cold dread flooded through him. He was here during opening hours. Somehow he'd thus far avoided the place during the late evening. He nudged the door back open. Smart business-like corridors had transformed into low-light alluring pathways meandering to secret and enticing mystery. The closed wooden slat doors were all thrown open, and in their place were shimmering curtains, beyond which figures moved and swayed, beckoning to their clients. Shivering lines of sequins tinkled faintly and a mist of thin gauze hung about the soft hallways, melding with the drift of perfume and incense.

Bi-Han was momentarily put out. His senses reeled in the jumbled infusion of sight, sound, and smell. A calm slowly regathered over him as he remembered that he knew all these elusive figures half hidden in their silk jungle. They were people just like him, working for Grace, just doing their job. And they knew him. Their work disorientated and confused him, but they were the people he felt most safe around in all Hong Kong. He strode through purposefully.

"Zho?" He hard his name filter through the veils and smoke. Audrey, a petite female courtesan who favourite traditional Chinese long cheongsam, but slit provocatively high, almost to her hip. "Not your usual hours" She smiled, amused.

"I completely forgot this was a working… uh…"

"You think we loiter day and night in flamboyant outfits for our own amusement?"

"Wouldn't surprise me." Bi-Han gave. She grinned at him.

"What you in for?"

"Press clippings. Apparently the boss keeps every article documenting uh… misdeeds she has her hands in." He tilted his head thoughtfully, "Kind of incriminating really. But useful in this instance. Got some reading up to do on my next… project."

"Your euphemisms are to die for."

"So's your subtlety, don't let the clients hear."

She grinned again, and instead of a usual salute, gave him a sultry evening bow. Bi-Han rolled his eyes.

He made his way to Grace's office. He was about to knock when he heard the familiar tones of Antony Kwan ranting behind the door. Bi-Han let out his breath slowly. Walking in on that wasn't going to be pretty. He opted to lean against the wall and wait. It was a hot night. He could feel his shirt collar uncomfortable on his neck, and undid a button to relief the itch. He missed his Lin Kuei uniform. But he supposed he mostly wore that in the cold. Probably almost any clothing could find its irritation point in a humid dark hot night surrounded by strangers who were walking uncomfortably close to him. He backed up against a wall as a woman pushed into his space. She possessed too much pomposity and privilege to be anyone but a client. The sleeve of her gown brushed his suit. She paused. She was very close to him. Bi-Han was instantly on edge. She looked up at him.

"I was just wondering – is there's a house bar in this establishment?" She seemed to talk through her eyelashes, which fluttered like unnecessarily large parasols shielding prying eyes, "You see, I'm looking for a long, tall drink of water..."

"There's no bar." Bi-Han said carefully, "Orders are served direct to rooms."

"What else is served direct to rooms?" She said huskily, and pressed herself up against him.

Bi-Han's eyes shot wide open and his body went rigid. He fought down the instinctive urge to resolve the problem with immediate terminal violence. He tried to think clearly as he flattened himself against the wall. _Don't kill, don't kill. Cover. Triad. Grace's HQ. Grace's client. Don't kill her clients. Think clearly. It's just a mission. It's just a mistake._

"I'm not… I don't… work here like that." He said stiffly, wondering if his body language could scream _get off me_ any louder.

"You should." The client touched her fingers to his chest and walked them down over the well-built muscles, "You're much more to my taste. No one here with physique quite like yours." She gave him a sly grin. Bi-Han couldn't seen her face because his eyes were locked on her neck and the perpetual thought that snapping it would resolve things much quicker.

"Please… leave me alone."

Her hand felt the ridges in his stomach muscles and she smiled appreciatively, feeling his form through the fabric.

"Hey!"Audrey's voice pierced the hot nightmare, "Back off, lady!" The sharpness in her tone caused the bead curtains of every room this end of the corridor to rattle. A flurry of fabric rushed to his rescue. In moments Bi-Han was mercifully surrounded by courtesans standing between him and the client. They hassled the offending woman out in a scene that was all a blur to him.

"Zho?" He heard Yi's voice next to him. "Let's go stand outside, okay?"

He followed the flowing tail of Yi's silk gown out into the night air. It was hot out here too, but at least a breeze ruffled his hair.

"Let's sit down," Yi gestured to a bench.

"I'm fine," Bi-Han shook his head clear, "I should get back to work."

" _You_ , sit down!" Audrey came out the door, with a commanding voice and concern in her eyes. Bi-Han sat down awkwardly between them. The neon lights lit up the otherwise darkened square outside the brothel. The square was empty save for crisp packets and empty lager cans rolling in the gutters. It was strangely quiet.

"I'm fine," Bi-Han repeated dully, "I've been caught in _gun_ crossfire, I can handle a little-" He cut himself off abruptly, and stiffened at the recent recollection of proximity.

Yi lit a cigarette and passed it to him.

"I don't smoke." Bi-Han said quietly. A silence fell over them.

"Sorry about that back there," Audrey said shortly. "Shouldn't have happened."

"Wasn't your fault," Bi-Han said emptily. There was quiet again. Half under his breath he added, "It shouldn't have bothered me like it did. I'm more professional than that."

"What bothers you is irrelevant," Yi crossed his legs gracefully and smoked, "It was abundantly clear you weren't interested and that's enough."

"Why are we talking about this?" Bi-Han snapped, "I already said it doesn't matter, I have work to do." He didn't get up, and the other two said nothing. The distant sounds of passing traffic were punctuated intermittently by laughter as nightlife lit up different corners of the city. Bi-Han's shoulders sagged. His fingers felt over his knuckles, absently tracing the scars he'd won in his short lifetime. "Is there something wrong with me?" He asked softly, "I don't like the things everyone else does. I think maybe there's something not right with me. I mean, I know I had an unconventional upbringing, but-"

"Wrong has nothing to do with it." Yi smoked authoritatively, his gaze still stretching out over the small darkened square. "You are who you are and people have to respect that. Nothing more to it."

"People are different." Audrey shrugged, "Met plenty like you before."

Bi-Han looked up. His heartbeat was pounding with uncertainly, afraid by how vulnerable he felt in this moment.

"Really?"

"Sure." She said.

"Is it because I kill people for a living?"

Audrey was silent for a bit,

"Can't say. I'm no psychiatrist. I just know people. And I've met plenty of people who've no interest in sex or romance. Pretty sure they weren't all Triad enforcers." Bi-Han flinched when the problem was aired aloud, "Funny thing to say in my line of work, your thinking. But you'd be surprised how many people come here just to be spoken to."

"True that." Yi agreed, keeping the moment from lapsing into a silence he sensed might be difficult, "I had a guy last week. Came in with five other loud lads. Thought it was going to be a long night. But as soon as its the privacy of our room, he sits in a chair and talks his heart out about his marriage that he thinks falling apart. Tells me about his kids, his job, a mistress on the side, savings for his mother in hospital. It was a long night but not the kind I was expecting."

"And I had a guy," Audrey put in, "Also came off the street drunk with mates, sets one foot in the private room and he's stone cold sober. Know what he said? 'I'm trying to hang with the lads at work to look good. I don't want any services, but can you pretend we did just so that they think I'm alright?'" Audrey laughed, and Bi-Han found a slight stray smile wandering onto his face.

"Do you guys even have to do anything for your job?" Bi-Han murmured. His words in jest still sounded ruffled even to his own ears.

Yi blew smoke out through his nose,

"Not as much as the boss's enforcer does." Yi gave a small smile. "It's a shame Syun's not with us any more. Not sure if you were here the same time as her. She was one of the boss's lieutenants. Really solid. Eyes like a hawk. She could see trouble before it got a chance to rear its ugly head. She wasn't at all like Anton strutting everywhere. She looked out for us – got really tough on clients looking to push people around. If she'd been here tonight-"

"Well she's _not_ here." Bi-Han said a little too coldly. He glanced away. There was quiet again.

"Stay here," Audrey stood, her red and gold dress turning rainbow under the neon lights, "I'll go get your newspaper clippings for you."

Bi-Han's nodded slowly,

"Ask for Herman Mah. That's the case I want."

Audrey nodded and disappeared back into the brothel.

"That the nasty thing you did with spines a few months back?" Yi asked. The stub of his cigarette glowered soft orange embers in the night. Bi-Han nodded. "Gave me shivers that one. How'd you do it?"

Bi-Han shrugged.

"Anything's possible when you put your mind to it."

Yi shook his head in wonder,

"You are one scary guy, Zho. Thanks for not going bloodbath on us tonight. I imagine it crossed your mind. One headline like that here and we'd all be cleared out of this place." Yi flicked the stub into the darkness. It sputtered on the pavement some way off then winked out. "We got your back, ok? Not just for things like this. For anything else you need. Guy like you probably doesn't need a whole lot of help. But – something comes up, we got you, ok?"

Bi-Han nodded silently. He stood when Audrey returned with the pressings he needed. He nodded to them both.

"Thanks." He said, leaving it ambiguous what the thanks was for.

The next morning was bright and cloudless. Bi-Han shuffled through the newspaper articles laid out on the kitchen table. He sipped from a cup of coffee and without looking up, and said,

"You do your chemistry homework?"

Kuai picked up his bag and smiled shyly,

"...Yes."

"And your forms for this morning?"

"Yes, Bi-Han."

"Good. Have a good day at school."

Bi-Han glanced up and saw Kuai beaming at him.

"What?"

"Nothing." Kuai grinned and ran out the door to catch the school bus as it pulled up.

Bi-Han returned to the clippings. The coverage of his murder was mostly sensational. The images were all of the dockyard, or the building where the murder took place, or a smiling picture of Herman Mah, alive and well. Clearly the state Bi-Han had left him in had been deemed too graphic for public consumption. Initially there had been interviews with his son, Stanley. They were all gushing, and an embroidered version of the events that night. Bi-Han noticed Stanley left out any mention of the fight he'd had with his father, and the hour he gave for leaving was a lot earlier than Bi-Han knew it had been. Predictably, the clippings that followed over the next couple of weeks turned the eye of suspicion on Stanley. A grainy CCTV camera had picked up Stanley walking through pools of light at the dockyard a lot later than his story made out. CCTV. Bi-Han leaned over the image. He hadn't noticed any cameras. Careless. Given how poor the footage of Stanley was caught under the floodlight, he doubted anything existed of himself, but still, he would be more careful when he returned to pay the dockyard a visit.

He found the camera that had taken the footage in the newspaper. It was high up on one of the poles holding floodlights. The brightness of the lights and the dark of night would have made it near impossible to see last time. That didn't console him however. He'd been careless. Excuses didn't matter if your mistakes made you dead. He was lurking in the shadows of a shipping container at Herman Mah's dockyard, wearing a loose black hoodie and his best nondescript clothes. He still looked sorely out of place, and in the late morning sun, shadows were in short supply. The dock workers were all in light shirts, high-viz jackets and yellow hard hats. He thought for a moment.

One worker was striding purposefully towards an empty crane parked over on Bi-Han's left. Bi-Han delved into his hoodie front pocket. He pulled out a flyer for Ocean Park. He hadn't worn the jumper since he took Kuai there for his birthday.

"Hey!" He stepped out of the shadows and waved a hand at the worker, "Hey can you help me?" He pointed at the flyer.

The worker frowned and walked over to Bi-Han. Bi-Han took a step back into the shadow of the stacked shipping containers as he unfolded the flyer and its elaborate pictographic map.

"Hello!" Bi-Han said amiably, "Yeah, I was just trying to work out how to get to here?" He held open the map and raised it to the worker. As the worker squinted at the map printed with pandas and parrots, Bi-Han took the opportunity to position his fist under the flyer. He uppercutted the man square in the jaw and knocked him straight out cold.

"Thanks for your help." He said to the body collapsed on the floor.

He lost no time in dragging the man into a half ajar shipping container, and changing into his clothes. He felt foolish putting on a fluorescent jacket to stay incognito. He stepped out into the bright sun and put the same kind of purpose in his stride he'd seen the dockworkers walk with. The shipyard wasn't as big as Bi-Han had first assumed. A number of different companies owned shipyards lining the coastline. Each with their own sheds, employees, rules, customs and wares. It was hard to tell if Stanley Mah's operation was all business or walked on the edge of organised crime. From what Bi-Han knew, most Triad clans had humble origins in syndicates like this anyway. The Jade Fist Pact was something of an outlier with its familial ties and conservative roots.

That morning, Bi-Han kept his head down and hands useful, heavy lifting with the other workers. As far as he could observe, there was little evidence of resentment or finger-pointing toward the JFP for any misdeed or blame. At least not amongst the workers. The shipments themselves seemed innocent enough, mostly machine parts coming in from the mainland. Bi-Han was glad. Perhaps if Grace saw there was no immediate threat to her wing, she would give him the meeting he needed to get into the top level of JFP hierarchy. Bi-Han unloaded another box down from a container into waiting arms. He liked the low level of nonsense banter between the workers here, and the repetitive strain of simple exerting work. A voice broke the calm just before midday. Stanley Mah strode into the large shed they were working in, clipboard in hand.

"Okay, listen up. Let's get this stuff all shifted by the end of today. There's a special shipment coming in tomorrow from Japan and you know how this place gets when the crates stack up. I want to take the shipment here in my old man's place not in any of the other company yards we're working. So that means all this has got to go." Stanley tapped a pen to his clipboard, glancing down its page.

"Boss, it's not coming in on one of those open sea freighters is it? Not to here, surely?"

Even Bi-Han, the most inexperienced dockworker from a landlocked mountainous province in mainland China, could see the problem with that. The channel here was rife with industrial traffic, civilian ferries, and pleasure boats. Nothing larger than the cargo ferries moored beyond the garages would navigate this point in the channel.

"No, idiot, of course not." Stanley snapped, "The freighter puts into port at Victoria Harbour, other side of the island tonight. First thing tomorrow it'll be on a small cargo carrier coming here. So get this stuff moving and leave logistics to the guy with the clipboard." He tipped his hard hat up, "That's me."

Stanley seemed to be enjoying the bump up the ranks Bi-Han had given him. Bi-Han was going to need to get a good look at that clipboard if he wanted to intercept this 'special' shipment before it got under Stanley Mah's protective gaze.

Bi-Han took a step back and drifted into the background of the work force. He made the all-too-familiar walk towards the administrative building out in the yard. It looked different in the light. Bi-Han still had a perfect floor plan of it mapped out in his head. He glanced in through the windows. A photograph of Herman Mah stood proud on the desk. Otherwise it looked much the same as it had last time. Bi-Han knocked. There was no answer. _Good._ He tried the door, locked.

"Can I help you?" Stanley Mah stood behind him.

Bi-Han turned around and hid his surprise with a casual smile.

"I was just looking for you." Bi-Han had been hoping he didn't have to talk. His Cantonese came over with an awkward accent.

"And you are…?" Stanley flicked through a few sheets of his clipboard. "I don't recognise you."

"I'm a fairly new hire. Look, I'm here." He leant over Stanley's shoulder and memorised the numbers of every shipping container due to drop off tomorrow morning. He turned over the next page, then a few more. "Hm, I guess the paperwork hasn't gone through yet. One moment, I'll go get the copy in my bag."

Before Stanley could object, Bi-Han was gone. One worker would wake up with a sore head and his clothes a little ruffled, a bottle in his hand, as he sat propped up in the shadow of a shipping container. No one else would be any the wiser.

Bi-Han sat on a quayside bench half a mile from the dockyard. He pulled out a biro pen he had lifted from Stanley Mah's pocket and pulled out the helpful Ocean Park flyer from his hoodie. He wrote down all the container names he'd memorised in its margin, then folded it away. Before he did so, he noted that the number one road past the Ocean Park would get him neatly down onto the other side of the island, and not too far from the east edge of Victoria Harbour. A helpful flier indeed.

It had taken him longer than anticipated to be riding a bus down the number one road to the north of the island. He planned to be out all evening, and seeing as how he'd only recently got Kuai to stop scowling at him, he'd decided to make and leave dinner on the table for him, ready for when he came home from school. The whole process had taken far longer than he would have liked. He'd tried to find a way of making sure the food stayed warm, which wasn't an area a cryomancer had much forte in. Eventually, he'd scrawled a rough note telling Kuai to heat it up himself. He'd left a small slice of cake he'd picked up from the supermarket in the fridge, but had backtracked after getting out the front door when he realised that even though Kuai would find it, he might not eat it if he thought it wasn't permitted. In the end he'd left a note on that too, that simply read _'I won't be angry if you eat it.'_

Victoria Harbour was a mess of exquisite wealth and rugged industry. Luxury hotels with glass exteriors built like still ripples looked out over the bay, taking advantage of the vista it afforded of mainland Hong Kong. One end of the harbour operated nearly every major ferry to the mainland and boasted its own ferris wheel. At the other, just over the bridge, the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals ran a twenty-four hour non-stop import and export to over five hundred destinations across the globe. The working dock was all yellow cranes, thick rubber buoys, flat bottomed red cargo boats mounted with winches, enormous ocean liners lost to mist and darkness, and terminals striped the colours of the rainbow by stacks of containers. While Bi-Han had been expecting something a little bigger than the shipyards in Aberdeen, but he hadn't quite prepared himself for this sight. As early evening fell, the industrial end of the port lit the night on fire with a thousand bright lights. The legs of black sky high cranes flashed red, white, yellow, and green, while under it containers stretched so thick and bright with colour it was hard to see the bay between. Bi-Han paused, his fingers curling around the flyer in his pocket with container numbers scribbled on it. This was going to be a little more difficult that he had anticipated.

He pulled up his hoodie and walked quickly up to the perimeter fence. The conventional entrance looked a little better guarded than he'd banked on for an intelligence gathering mission. He instead jogged lightly to a darked stretch of fence. He clasped his fingers around the metal grid of the fence and bowed his head into the shade of his hoodie in case cameras were watching. The metal chilled and frosted under his touched. He clenched his fist and the grid snapped about his fingers, shattering as it hit the ground in pieces. He let his ice spread, freezing a tear through the fencing. He slipped through into the docks.

A blazing riot of industrial light stood tall on either side of him. The black sky seemed a distant strip of darkness far above. The air was abuzz with the constant hum of machinery, repeated electronic sounds of cranes and winches lowering and raising, and the distant blare of ship horns. There was a smell of diesel, oiled machinery, and wet, sea-speckled metal. He looped back round to the other side of the security offices. He had broken into Terminal 8, which according to a hopeful sign was run by Asia Container Terminals Ltd. The other options had looked too international to be helpful. He'd narrowed down his search to around several thousand shipping containers.

He slipped in and out sparse shadows until he made his way up to the security box. From this side, he could see that there was only one security guard. He was in a blue shirt with only a baton at his belt and was eating noodles from a box through half closed eyes. The radio was droning and his desk light had a faulty bulb that buzzed whenever it flickered. The door was wedged open with an old baseball cap to let in a thin almost non-existent breeze on the warm night. Bi-Han nudged the door further open with his toe. It was metal, and creaked on rusted hinges. The radio drone smothered the noise. The guard continued to thrust noodles into his mouth with roughly snapped chopsticks. Bi-Han saw now that a magazine was open before him. It was still going to be difficult not to attract attention when the guard office was the size of a small cubicle, but perhaps not impossible. Bi-Han let the door creak open a little further. He moved fluid and soft, stepping into the tiny space behind the man's chair. His eyes roved quickly up and down the wall at the back of the office. His fingers stopped on a thick wad of official lined yellow paper, hole punched and hung on a nail. Lists of crate numbers were set next to aisle numbers and another figure he could only assume were for column heights. The list went on for pages and pages. Bi-Han closed his eyes and thought. It was hard with the radio droning on and the clatter of disposable chopsticks on cardboard just behind him. Stanley Mah had said the crate would come in from Japan this evening, and ship back out tomorrow morning. Whilst there might be thousands of crates from Japan tonight, there couldn't be that many going on to Aberdeen tomorrow. A freighter couldn't pull through the channel, so the number of crates headed down there would be significantly less. He shifted his weight to lean slightly further over to the right, He could feel the desk chair of the oblivious guard pressing slightly into his hip. A second wad of paper for morning departures. He lifted the pages very carefully, not letting the crinkle of paper make a sound. He stopped at a page for Hong Kong internal deliveries. Then Aberdeen. In amidst the much shorter list he picked out the crate numbers he'd memorised. Only three numbers from his list were coming from here, Terminal 8. And of those three, there was only one originating from Japan. He smiled and memorised the aisle and stack numbers. It felt good when research paid off. In the corner of his eye he saw his reflection on the black glass of the cubicle window. The guard had set down his chopsticks and stopped, staring in slight confusion and disbelief at the reflection. His eyes met Bi-Han's in the mirror dark glass. He swivelled round suddenly and Bi-Han bolted out the office. Bi-Han swung the steel door hard behind him and heard an almighty bang as it caught the guard on the nose. There was swearing and blood, then the sound of the radio being tuned over and the raw nasal warning sounded by the security guard,

"Some kid in a hoodie pranking around the yard," He pinched his nose hard to try and stem the blood. "Keep an eye out, I think he broke my nose."

Aisle numbers were lit up in red lights, but unfortunately nearly everything was lit up in light of some kind, meaning Bi-Han had few places to hide despite the dark. The whir of machinery clouded his hearing and made it hard to keep tabs on footsteps. He side-stepped behind the foot of a crane as a two-man patrol with swinging torches passed by him. He ran softly, spreading his weight on his toes to keep the sound muffled. He found his aisle and kept up his light sprint. He paused panting when he reached the right stack. It was impossibly high and dark next to him. He let his breath return to him. He heard the crunch of patrolling footfalls. Two more guards paused at the far end of his aisle. They chatted lowly to one another and then turned to walk straight down Bi-Han's aisle. With no more time left, Bi-Han sprung up and caught the corrugated roof of the first container. He pulled himself up. He stepped along the narrow rim of the container ledge until he reached the thin gap between it and the next stack. He wedged a foot against each container wall and used the friction to scale up to the next level. The guard patrol passed below him, torches shining circles of light onto the black footpath. Bi-Han paused whilst he watched them pass. Once they were gone, he climbed again. His crate was red, and bore a single number, but otherwise was devoid of mark or brand. A two inch thick padlock kept it shut, but Bi-Han coaxed the lock open once its temperature reach minus forty degrees centigrade. He opened the door. Then had to open it wider because the black of night gave him no light at all. The door squealed with the peel of reluctant rusting metal. The container was relatively empty given its size. Bi-Han had to walk a way in before he got to the crates stacked at the back. The crates were marked with the emblem of two dragons back to back against a sword. Bi-Han's heart fell, not the kind of logo a supplier in second-hand machine parts would use then. He broke a crate open and reached in.

The weaponry was like nothing he'd ever seen before. The gun he pulled out was the size of his arm, but light, with hydraulic canisters and some kind of piston mechanism, and a small mounted computer built on top. Instead of a barrel, something more resembling a rail protruded from the weapon. Bi-Han turned the thing over in his hands. He supposed it might not be a gun, but some piece of industrial machinery, perhaps a boltgun for fixing metal sheets. This assessment was overturned by his next find. This was most definitely designed to be a light hand-held weapon. He held the gun in one hand and realised there was a small crystal display just above where his thumb rested. _A fingerprint lock?_ He replaced the gun quickly. There was no way Stanley Mah was affording whatever the hell this was on the income his shipyard made legally or illegally. Bi-Han took a step back. Now that he'd opened one crate and seen its contents, the remaining ten crates didn't seem like such a small cargo for this shipping container. _This could start, end, and win a war._ He swallowed. There wouldn't be any Jade Fist Pact to infiltrate if this cargo made it into the hand of their enemies.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Kwai Tsing by night: (fanfic people sorry links dont work, you can find it on Archive of Our Own if you're interested)

Guess who knows all about shipping in Hong Kong. Guess who calculated the average number of crates Terminal 8 turns over a day. (They won an award for best company turning over less than 4 million containers a year, so top estimate based on 4 million is just under 11,000 containers a day, sexy sexy facts).

Also I played a lot of Assassin's Creed recently, and everyone knows than an assassin's best friend are no nonsense streetwise courtesans.

Black Ice is now available to read in Chinese thanks to the hard work of 2666LL! The link is on Archive of Our Own if you want it.


	29. Pride and Humility

**WARNING: Implicit references to child abuse.  
**

* * *

Bi-Han chewed his lip as he waited for the call to go through. He squeezed his eyes shut then open, shut then open. A rhythm was tapped against the receiver. He answered it swiftly.

"We are more stealthful than the night."

"And more deadly than the dawn. It's Sub-Zero, get me the Grandmaster."

"Sub-Zero…" The recruit sounded hesitant. "I have orders that all your calls are to be sent through to-"

"I don't give a damn what your orders are, patch me through."

Bi-Han's fingers drummed against the plastic of the pay phone. He was in a smart end of Hong Kong where the night life had only just got started despite the late hour.

"Hello, your future Grandmaster speaking."

"Sektor!? I said I wanted the Grandmaster! This is serious, put me through to him!"

"Can't do that, Sub-Zero," Sektor sounded relaxed, and like he was enjoying this.

"I'm fucking serious, Sektor." Bi-Han's agitation chafed away his manners and cool.

"So you said. But no amount of swearing at me is going to change the order _I_ received to direct your mission _._ So lay off the language and tell me what's happened."

"I'm not telling you anything." Bi-Han snapped, "You can't help me. The mission is failing. I need to speak with the Grandmaster or this is all for nothing. The last five months will have been for nothing."

"You need to calm down and give me some of that professionalism your meant to be famed for, Bi-Han."

Bi-Han hesitated at the sound of his name. He might have nothing but indifference for Sektor, but he was still someone he had grown up alongside for nine long years. He hated to admit it, but Sektor knew him, and knew him well.

He inhaled slowly. It didn't help the world of collapsing plans in his head.

"There's another party about to start a war with the clan I've infiltrated. They're going to fucking demolish them. I don't know who's outfitting them, but these guns… I've never seen anything like them before. I could sabotage the current shipment, maybe? But this is big. It's so damn big. Whoever's funding these guys is just rolling these top of the line future-weapons onto the market like they're nothing. There could be more here tomorrow even if I rerouted this shipment on a trip round the world on some backwater ocean liner. I'm this close. I'm this close and the last thing I need is more idiot inter-clan politics to put me back on the frontline instead of into the higher ranks. And if this war breaks out there won't _be_ any more Jade Fist Pact!" He punched his knuckles into his forehead. He should be talking to the Grandmaster about this, not hotshot Sektor with his eternal competitive bitterness.

"Got anything on where these weapons have come from? Country? Company? Anything?"

"Japan. No names. Just a logo. Down-pointing sword flanked by rearing dragons." Dragons. Hadn't he heard something about dragons exchange between Herman and Stanley Mah on the night he killed the father. He racked his brain. It was so long ago and tonight had gone so pear-shaped so fast.

"Black Dragon." Sektor supplied.

"That's it," Bi-Han said to the working recesses of his brain, then started when he realised those words hadn't come out of his head, "Wait what- you know them?"

"Mm. Old group, nasty types, very secretive, had an inkling they might have stepped up their game into more experimental tech."

"These were very… experimental," Bi-Han said in an effort to sound helpful. "How do I take them out?"

"Not going to happen. They've got resources and deep pockets. Maybe even as deep as the Lin Kuei. Certainly deeper than a lone Lin Kuei assassin."

Bi-Han's mind was a crowd of difficulties and successes he'd struggled through to bring him to this moment. He shuddered as he thought of hands feeling along the definition of his muscles last night. He took another breath and was loathe to find it shaking.

"What the fuck am I going to do?" He said with more despair than venom.

"Cut them out of the equation."

"You just said-"

"I said you can't murder them, Bi-Han, there are more options available." There was a pause for Bi-Han to insert his customary smart retort. No retort was forthcoming, so Sektor continued, "We need to cut them out by making a deal with them."

"This is a small time dockworking syndicate, they're not about to make a deal to throw away the chance to usurp one of the biggest clans on the-"

"Not them. The Black Dragon."

"I could run it by Grace Yeung, but I don't know if they have the international clout to-"

"Sub-Zero, be quiet. This is clearly an area in which you do not hold all the expertise. For once in your perfect life shut up and listen to someone else."

Bi-Han shut up.

"The Lin Kuei will cut a deal with the Black Dragon. As a courtesy call between one international crime syndicate and another. We will make our interests in Hong Kong known to them. And request that they withdraw their support. As a favour and perhaps the start of a future mutual arrangement. The Lin Kuei hold international clout, Sub-Zero. You need to learn to think with all the resources at your disposal. You are not a lone wolf."

"I can't do that."

"Can't think beyond just yourself, or-?"

"Can't go to the Black Dragon! Not as Lin Kuei. Not whilst I'm undercover. What if they don't like the sound of the deal? One word to the JFP and I wouldn't even know the game was up until my own intestines were around my throat."

"You paint a graphic image-"

"And Kuai Liang. They'd come after Kuai. We'd be dead before-… The mission would be over, everything would be over. It's too high risk, it's-"

"You're panicking again."

"Of course I'm panicking?! Didn't I just say Kuai's life would be on the line?! This is why I needed to speak to the Grandmaster, you don't-"

"Fine. I'll do it myself."

Bi-Han stopped.

"What? Do what yourself?"

"I'll fly over there and speak with the Black Dragon on behalf of the Lin Kuei."

"You-… I mean… even if you did that – it's too late, the weapons are already here, and if they're such a secretive organisation, how are we meant to just contact-"

Sektor made an impatient clicking noise with his tongue and Bi-Han immediately fell silent.

"Sabotage the shipment. Send the container back to the port it came from. Leave a message inside. The message will read – get a pen and paper-"

Bi-Han pulled the now worn 'Ocean Park' flyer out of his pocket. He should probably carry around a notepad.

" _Interested in this shipment and in it not going to Hong Kong. Meet Feb 10_ _th_ _Tokyo Haneda departure lounge._ And sign it with only with the Lin Kuei emblem."

"Is that enough time for them to get to the container? What if they don't find it? Should I wait until the Grandmaster approves you flying out before-"

"Sub-Zero. There _are_ some perks to being the Grandmaster's son. You just do what you're told. You don't have much time before morning Hong Kong time. Which incidentally is the same as the time here in the Lin Kuei Temple."

Bi-Han faintly remembered the petty prank he'd pulled on Sektor with regard to time zones. It seemed like a lifetime ago and idiotic on his own part now that he looked back.

"Yes, Sektor." He swallowed down his pride, "Thank-you..."

"Oh, and Sub-Zero?"

Bi-Han steeled himself for whatever slating comment he deserved.

"If you _had_ had the Grandmaster on the line he would have pulled you out the mission immediately. And I don't imagine the welcome he would have planned for you back here would have been pretty. Remember who has the underworld contracts and an interest in cutting edge technology next time you try to call in over my head."

The line went dead. Bi-Han hung it back up slowly, feeling foolish.

It begun on a rainy Tuesday morning in early February in the school yard. The bluster of winter kept a chill in the air, although to Kuai it was as if the year had skipped winter altogether. He'd never experienced one so mild before. He was sitting alone on a post in one of the old spots Jia used to find him hiding, reading the _Bai Zhi Wen Ji_. He liked reading the stories and struggles found in old poems, but was never sure when he was permitted to read them. Texts read in school were meant to be in English, and reading poems at home would invite scorn from his brother.

 _My heritage lost through disorder and famine,  
My brothers and sisters flung eastward and westward,  
My fields and gardens wrecked by the war,  
My own flesh and blood become scum of the street_

He looked up at the sound of footsteps. For a moment he thought perhaps it was Jia, before he recognised the girl from his chemistry classes. He lowered his book.

"Hi." The girl said shyly. She had dark straight hair plaited with white spotted ribbons and spoke English with an English accent. "I'm Elizabeth Cheung. We have chemistry classes together." She raised her neat straight fringe to reveal singed eyebrows. "I'm the girl who nearly lost her eyebrows last term in an experiment." There was a kind of pride in that admission.

"I remember," Said Kuai. Then he was silent. People usually left him alone. He wasn't quite sure what had brought on this introduction, or how he should respond to it.

Elizabeth Cheung also seemed a little awkward. She hopped from one foot to the other.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" She asked.

He shook his head.

There were only wooden fenceposts to sit on, and they were slimy with rain. Elizabeth wore a chequered dress of blue and white, the kind that Jia might have made a rude comment about. As she tried to climb up the post her dress took on more of the green decay of wood.

"I don't want to hang around with my friends." She said after a few moments. She'd given up trying to climb the pole and now leaned back against it, looking up with a peaked face that Kuai realised had sad eyes. "They started saying all sorts of unkind things, so now I'm not even sure they are my friends. But I remembered everyone always said horrible things to Jia Li-heng, and you never minded being around her. So I thought maybe you wouldn't mind if I stood with you for a bit. I don't want to stand on my own."

Kuai frowned but nodded.

"Sure, I don't mind." His eyes flicked back to his book.

Elizabeth Cheung interlocked her fingers and twisted them. She looked across the schoolyard to where a gaggle of girls all stood in a circle facing inwards and occasionally glanced over their shoulders at her.

"Do you like cartoons, Tao?"

"Not really."

"I like American cartoons like the Powerpuff Girls. My friends say I look like Buttercup." She looked down, "Whilst they were still my friends I mean…"

Kuai gave a sympathetic grimace.

"Actually," Elizabeth said slowly and thoughtfully, "I always thought Jia Li-heng was more like Buttercup than me. You see, she's a really tough fighter, and she doesn't take any nonsense from anyone. Jia always seemed really strong to me."

"She was." Kuai agreed. He wondered where Jia was now. And if she was a strong without the mother she idolised.

"How come you always stuck around with Jia even though… you know, she was so different to everyone else."

Kuai thought about this. He wasn't really sure he had an answer. He shrugged.

"Made more sense than hanging around with Nianzu. Jia was..." Talking about her in the past tense always made it feel like Jia had been the one who died, "She was more honest. Just said things as they were. Someone like Nianzu only seems to care about things that don't matter, like what house I live in and how high up and what part of town."

"I suppose," said Elizabeth, "But wasn't Jia always getting into trouble too? You get into much less trouble now that she's not about."

Kuai's eyes hooded,

"Jia did what she thought she needed to," And like that his words painfully reminded him of defending Bi-Han, "Sometimes school rules are silly, so she did what she thought was right." And with more confidence, as he thought of the old woman who lived upstairs and grew vegetables and brewed stubborn tempers, "Sometimes doing what's right isn't the same as doing what people tell you to."

Elizabeth was quiet after this. Eventually she nodded,

"OK. I guess that makes sense." Kuai decided he liked talking to people his own age. They saw things a lot clearer than grown-ups who were always complicating things.

Elizabeth Cheung stood with him the next break time, and all Wednesday too. She talked a lot, but Kuai didn't really mind. It was sort of nice spending time with people his own age again, even if they weren't Jia or Tomas. On Thursday morning, somebody else joined them. He was a thin surly boy, very bony and small for his age, with large pond green eyes and straight line eyebrows.

"It's Qingwa." Elizabeth whispered to Kuai as the boy approached. "No one remembers his name but he looks like a frog, so we call him Qingwa."

Kuai gave her a disapproving look.

Qingwa wasn't interested in talking about cartoons. He didn't even introduce himself. He merely lurked nearby until Kuai drilled answers out of him.

"I want to learn to fight." Qingwa reluctantly admitted.

Kuai blinked in surprise. Not only was he not advanced enough to teach, but sharing Lin Kuei techniques outside the clan was punishable by death.

"I can't do that." He said quickly.

"Teach me in break times," Qingwa insisted, "I have to learn. I saw you fight last term. Teach me."

"You can't learn to fight just in break times," Kuai explained patiently, "It takes years to learn. Learning just a few moves is more dangerous than knowing none. It gives you false confidence. Most of the time you should get out of a fight, not escalate one."

"Well I can't get out of the fight. So teach me." Qingwa snapped. Kuai heard things in that response that troubled him, but he kept his mind on the immediately practical.

"Fine." He said coolly, "I'll teach you how to get out of a fight then."

Qingwa looked like he might object, but then shut his mouth.

"Give me your wrist." Kuai made to touched the boy's wrist, but he flinched backwards. Kuai paused, recognising the fear in that movement. He saw a hunted look in the boy's eyes. There was that hollow furtive agitation in them that plagued many of the young Lin Kuei recruits who had felt Temple punishments. "I won't hurt you." Kuai said gently. His mind went unbidden to the severe Lin Kuei halls of cut stone and oiled wood. Masters with eyes lost in dark hoods and words slashed with venom waited in the shadows of long sparring rooms. The smallest failures were met with thin hard bamboo switches on the soles of feet. Mistakes went unforgiven, disappointing students were to be shunned, and stifled midnight tears went unconsoled. Kuai Liang had long found ways around such strict temple rules. Whilst it was true one could not offer words or any tangible aid to a student in pain, there was a way one could look – not with a smile – a smile would be seen, but just with eyes. There was a way to convey in just a look to let someone know they were not alone, and that their sufferings were your sufferings. When Kuai gave Qingwa this look now, he saw that characteristic shadow of fear abate a little, and in its place an unsteady trust put down small roots.

The boy quieted enough that Kuai could reach for his hand. He showed Qingwa how to break out of a grip on his wrist by tugging sharply where the grip was weakest near a captor's thumb. The next break time he showed Qingwa how to break a choke hold on his neck by first surprising his attacker with two fingers to their eyes, or stamping on their toes, or a strike to the groin, and then a sharp sudden movement to break their hold. The next day, Elizabeth wanted to learn too. She wanted to know what to do when someone pulled her hair. Qingwa was impatient with her because he didn't think that was important. He, after all, had short hair. But Kuai was always careful not to show favour to one circumstance over another. He showed Elizabeth how she could trap the hand that had grabbed her hair and used it as a pinion to twist on an armlock.

Kuai was surprised to find that, even though Elizabeth and Qingwa did not know the Temple ways or secrets or rules, they were in lots of ways very similar to the people he had grown up with. From a distance, civilians looked like they lived in a strange fantastical world, full of unnecessary technology and multitudinous choices. They lived in a world structured by the times of television shows, and memorised telephone numbers, and bus timetables, and petrol prices, and pictures in magazines, and manakins in shop windows, and adverts on buildings and roadsides and radio and TV. But in the school playground, they were just people, who up close had their own fears and their own private worries. They might be less brutal than a Lin Kuei's concerns, but they were still hurts and worries that could be touched by the same remedies.

The tentative way the school children approached him reminded him of a vivid early memory, from when he couldn't have been more than five or six. A frightened dejected creature had arrived at the Temple – young like most of the stolen recruits the Temple whisked away from their old lives. The creature had been thin, bedraggled, and grey, like the life had been sapped out of him. He had shuddered in and out of reality in sifts of mist and even to look at him terrified Kuai. The Temple had truly found itself another paranormal project: a child half present, half insubstantial, one foot in this world and one foot in the next. Looking into the child's eyes, Kuai had at first seen terrible things. Death, silence, fear, mistrust, in quantities so great that to see them all in one person's face set a shiver through Kuai's spine. The Grandmaster had been pleased by the find of this frightening child. He immediately put him in Bi-Han's care. Kuai at the time had thought this very sensible, as in his mind Bi-Han was the best at everything, and thus clearly a good choice for this and everything else. Now that Kuai looked back, he realised Bi-Han would only have been a couple of years older than Kuai was now, and not at all an obvious choice to help this strange child acclimatise. _Unless they thought Bi-Han could help him._ Hadn't Bi-Han already proved himself good at turning frightened children who couldn't understand their environments into trusting fledgling Lin Kuei assassins? Kuai's heart fell as he thought on this. Perhaps there were a great deal of things that the Lin Kuei did that were conniving – things he would only grow to understand with time and perspective.

These things aside though, Kuai remembered the moment when the grey child had stood before him without any teachers around to see, shifting in and out of mists and smokes, only half tangible. Kuai had looked hard, passed all the things that frightened other people, and eventually found what he was looking for. Tomas Vrbada. Just there under the surface, hidden away under frightened animal instincts and anxious furtive glances. Kuai was good at spotting people hiding away under their troubles. Mostly because he was good at spotting their troubles. And really when it came down to it, troubles were the same whether you were in the Lin Kuei Temple or a Hong Kong School. People were like cold dead seeds hidden under thick winter frosts. The frost had to thaw before roots could grow and plants could push through and flourish. _It is hard for any plants to grow up in the mountains near the Temple._

 _My fields and gardens wrecked by the war,  
My own flesh and blood become scum of the street_

The day after was Saturday with no school. Kuai found himself daydreaming through his homework and martial arts forms of how he could best show other self-defence techniques to Qingwa and Elizabeth. Bi-Han was agitated all weekend, and constantly off and on the phone to Sektor. Kuai had the attention to be perplexed by the change in respect his brother gave to the Grandmaster's son, but apart from that, his mind was elsewhere. There was something satisfying in knowing that this knowledge only given to him for killing-for-profit, might change someone's life or at least keep them a little safer. He felt a glowing sensation of pride when he rested his head that night, and wondered if this is how Bi-han felt all the time as an older brother.

On Monday morning Kuai immediately noticed there was something wrong. Qingwa walked like Bi-Han. More specifically like a very proud, hurt Bi-Han who stubbornly refused to let any weakness be seen. It was a walk that tried to mask pain.

Kuai's first thought was more of a feeling. Like shame. Shame that in the two short days he'd tried to help, he hadn't help change any odds for Qingwa and whatever troubles he faced. Kuai chose not to ask Qingwa about the pain he was hiding. Bi-Han always hated when he did, so Kuai was quick to think perhaps it might be the same for others. He instead showed Qingwa and Elizabeth more techniques, but was careful to make sure they didn't exacerbate any injury. At the end of the day, Kuai caught up to Qingwa after a biology lesson. He ran after him down the scuffed hall that led to the main concrete steps.

"Mind if I walk home with you today?" Kuai borrowed the bright optimism for masking sad things he had learned from Tomas.

"You take the bus home." Qingwa pointed out.

"Today I'd like to walk."

Qingwa shrugged, so Kuai walked with him. There were changes in the boy's shoulders, and something imperceptible relaxed. Kuai gave his best smile and they walked in silence.

As they walked the wind picked up, and blew the first premature blossoms off the few trees that lined the street. Pink and white flowers meandered on the breeze and shifted around the gutters. The two of them wound their way east and north, and exactly the opposite way to Kuai's house.

"You walk quite a long way to get home, isn't there a bus that comes out this way?"

"There is," Qingwa said emotionlessly, "But that would get me home sooner."

Another silence poured between them. Kuai felt himself beginning to size up the predicament before him. They walked far enough north that leafless trees sprung thick by the roadside, and houses were confined to lower blocks built into the hillside. Qingwa stopped part way down the street.

"You should probably go now."

"Would you like me to?"

There was a pause. Stray leaves rustled and a crumpled can bounced down the street. Qingwa said nothing.

"I'll come in with you," Said Kuai, putting to one side all the hissed disbelief and anger he could imagine Bi-Han spitting at him right now.

Kuai stepped over the threshold of the house like he was in a full stealth training class. The apartment was on the ground floor, and covered in geometric wallpaper all patterned in musty green and ill gold. The dressers smelt faintly rotten and a large mirror was tarnishing. All the electrical appliances had enormous instruction stickers still plastered on and a slight retrograde future look to them. Despite a wealth of fine looking furnishings, the whole place sagged with the weight of neglect.

Kuai watched the way Qingwa placed his finger between the lock and the latch to keep it as silent as possible as the door closed. Then they tiptoed to Qingwa's room. It was small and full of things one might expect a six-year-old boy to own, and not an eleven-year-old boy. Kuai didn't notice this, because he was used to rooms being completely bare, but he stopped before a small painted wooden boat sitting alone on a shelf. There was a framed picture of a stuffed bear holding balloons. The white bookshelf held picture books with a thick dust resting on their heads. Everything looked like it belonged to another time. It was not a well loved place.

Qingwa tapped his watch,

"Just twenty more minutes."

Kuai nodded even though he didn't understand.

"Until he falls asleep." Qingwa jerked his head towards the bedroom door.

The shadowy form of a monstrous beast filled Kuai's imagination. He gave a wincing grimace and pulled on his best brave face. Bi-Han wouldn't let himself be seen afraid even in the lair of a beast, he thought. Kuai summoned his courage at the thought of his brother. He tried to think of his training and as much to calm himself as help Qingwa, said,

"If you take off your shoes, and spread your toes as you walk, you will walk much quieter."

Qingwa nodded quickly and took off his shoes.

"And in a house like this, where it's old," Kuai added, "You can see the wooden floorboards curl slightly with damp at the walls. That means they're raised there and will squeak when you step on them. If you can, avoid hard surfaces at all when stepping. Carpet, or cushions or furniture will keep you quieter. And try to break up the pattern of your steps, if someone hears something, they'll be slower to recognise sounds as footsteps if they can't hear a rhythm."

Qingwa's face was an open book soaking up the morsels Kuai offered him. A helpless sense of foreboding was settling low in Kuai's stomach.

"And breathe through your mouth," Kuai gave a strained smile at Qingwa's attempt to follow his instructions, "Keeps it quieter."

A low roar sounded through the walls. Kuai stopped stock still, the hair on this arms stood up.

"That's the end of the sport news." Qingwa whispered, "He'll drink for the next ten minutes and fall asleep if he's not disturbed."

"Knowing the patterns of your target's behaviour helps to create safe means to navigate the world without their knowledge." Kuai recited. Another chill swept through him as he realised he was quoting his Lin Kuei masters to one outside the clan. He chewed his lip. He could only pray there was no way they could ever find out about this.

The dull thumping grew louder. There was swearing and something was pushed over and clattered to the floor. There was more thumping, a fridge door sucked opened, then slammed shut. Crockery in a dresser somewhere rattled with the impact. Qingwa shook his head, face paling,

"He's not going to sleep…"

Kuai heard the panic in his voice,

"When the target is inebriated, they become aliens in even their most familiar environment. Use this against them." Kuai said the words almost hypnotically.

"How can you be so calm?!" Qingwa's voice squeaked in his fear.

" _Kid_?!" A voice boomed from beyond the door, " _Kid_ , is that you?!"

Qingwa's eyes bulged so that he looked even more like a frog.

"Stay calm," Kuai said gently, not feeling at all calm. "Does your window open?"

"It's bolted shut."

Kuai nodded understandingly, whilst internally cursing himself for being fool enough to get trapped in a room with only one exit. Qingwa had backed into a corner near the closet. His thin arms had taken up a defensive posture. Kuai took a deep breath. There was clattering and staggering beyond the door.

"Come back and hide!" Qingwa whispered savagely.

Kuai thought for a moment,

"What's your name?"

Qingwa stared at him. His mouth took a few seconds to work.

"It… it's Steven."

"Okay, Steven, well… where I come from I learned a long time ago that there's no point hiding. If something terrible has to happen, it's best to meet it face on. And stare it cold and hard in the face. Don't let anyone have the satisfaction of seeing you hurt or upset. Let them see your defiance."

"That doesn't sound like a good idea!" Qingwa whispered frantically.

"It makes things worse," Kuai agreed, "But not in here." He tapped his chest. He squared up as the door burst open. A tottering man flew in, and had to self-right himself like buoy at sea. His shirt was undone at his neck so that the hairs on his chest poked through. There were stains down his front and a wild look in his eyes. His hair was askew and his fingernails were yellow. His face registered Kuai in a confused dismay.

"There's two..." The man slurred. His gaze slid with difficulty between Kuai and Qingwa.

"You're drunk." Kuai said coldly. Qingwa shrunk into the corner. The man might be drunk but he was still three or four times Kuai's bodyweight.

"Who's this!" The man was slowly catching on that the two boys were not the same person. He pointed a crooked finger at Qingwa, "You think you can jus' bring friends 'round here whenever you like?"

"I'm not his friend." Kuai said with absolute calm. "I just broke in here. I'm a thief."

"A – a what! A thief?" A straggle of confusion spread across the man's features. He looked around the room, gaze switching slowly between Kuai and Qingwa, as if trying to understand something. To accentuate his point, Kuai picked up the dusty picture frame of the teddy bear with bright balloons and smashed it on the floor. The sound of splintering glass broke through the man's senses like a mallet and he shook his head in startled surprise.

"Jus' wait til I get my hands on you! You vagrant! You filth! Get out of my house!"

Qingwa flinched deeper into the shadows. The man's eyes caught the movement, and another look of confusion wrinkled his face. He wheeled back to Kuai, swaying with the motion,

"You're scaring my son! Get out of here! Get away from him!" The man was showering spittle and rage now as he gesticulated toward Qingwa. His arms were flailing wildly and his balance was all off kilter.

"Make me."

"Huh!?"

"Make me get away from him," Kuai said cooly, "If you care so much."

There was another disbelieving roll of seconds whilst the man computed Kuai's response. Then he abruptly swung a ham fisted hook punch. The punch was so high Kuai didn't even have to duck. A perfectly even calm settled over Kuai. Time slowed down and Qingwa's bedroom became just another sparring hall back in the Temple. Kuai kicked the inside of his knee sharply. The man came down like a timber. He clutched his leg and rolled on the floor moaning and groaning.

"Can't even protect your own son," Kuai sneered, "Pathetic."

The man sniffed up his cries of pain and wiped his nose on the back of his arm. He struggled to get up but kept over balancing. In his tottering attempts, his wild eyes settled on the diminutive form of Qingwa, pressed into the corner. The man dragged himself along the floor until he was between Kuai and Qingwa. His emotions were all over the place, and there was a childlike urgency to him.

"I _can_ protect him!" The man snivelled in dishevelled anger.

"Go on then." Kuai balled his fist and filled the space between his fingers with ice. He thumped the whole weight in a hammerfist to the man's temple. The man went over again, slumping against the floor. For a moment Kuai thought he had knocked him out, but then the man began to squirm and writhe in disorientated pain. Qingwa's face was a silent spread of utter shock and confusion. Kuai ignored him. "Get up." Kuai snapped. The man struggled to sit back up. Kuai dragged him up by his shirt collar. The man's eyes were afraid now. Kuai looked into them emptily, "What's the point of you? What's the point of this set up here? What's the point in family who can't even control themselves, let alone protect those they love? You do love your son, don't you?"

"Y-yes!" The man sniffed, shying away from the more venomous of Kuai's syllables.

"Then prove it." He released the man, who promptly overbalanced and rolled back on the floor. Kuai turned away and walked away.

"Y-you didn't… you didn't steal anything…" The man croaked in confusion, looking up from the floor at figure of Kuai, dark in the doorway.

Kuai looked over his shoulder and stared the man straight in the eye.

"You have nothing worth stealing."

* * *

 **Author Note:** It was time to give Kuai a moment to grow.

Researching Powerpuff girls and Tang Dynasty poetry in the same chapter. Who'd a thought.

Poem extract from ' _To my Brothers and Sisters Adrift in Troubled Times this Poem of the Moon_ ' by Bai Juyi

Thanks so much for all the reviews and comments on both A03 and fanfic, reading them helps me keep writing :)


	30. Interlude

The connecting corridor was badly ventilated, and a stiff chug of humid air clung to him as he strode past the families with all their luggage. He had brought almost nothing with him. Almost nothing.

He held up his papers coolly at passport control and made his way to the rolling track for hold luggage. His bag snaked in first with a priority sticker and a double measure of bubblewrap. He took it to one side and tore it open. He unzipped a dufflebag to reveal two gleaming red arm bracers. He slipped them on and they adjusted their own fastenings, tightening snugly over his arms. He flicked the deep sleeves of his dark jacket over them. He abandoned the dufflebag where he'd opened it and strode out into the arrival lounge.

It was cooler here. The air conditioning pumped out a reasonable temperature and sucked some of the clammy moisture out the air. He had been about to eye up the nearest bar for a refreshment, when he glimpsed a placard. In amidst an array of people holding up names for arrivals at the airport, was a single white board emblazoned with the Lin Kuei emblem. He tried not to break his pace as he walked passed it. When he was sure he hadn't been noticed, he doubled back to take a good look at the man holding up the emblem.

"Hope we didn't draw it wonky, only it's a little difficult, all those triangles and circles."

He whirled round. A man with one eye, a thick black goatee, and a cigar hanging out his mouth stood nonchalantly at his side.

"Didn't mean ta scare ya mate, but I can kinda spot a Lin Kuei a mile off. You've got this intensity about you, like you've maybe all been living as recluses on a mountain somewhere." The man grinned and winked, "Kano." He offered his hand.

"Sektor." Sektor replied, not taking the hand.

"I get it, Japanese customs, konichiwa and all that."

"I just got off a plane into an international departure lounge in Tokyo," Sektor said coldly, "What about that screamed Japanese to you."

Kano gave him a sly grin, and Sektor was left with the distinct impression that the man was deliberately winding him up.

"My mistake," Kano put a hand over where his heart should be. There was a metallic clink. "Gaijin over here."

Sektor stared at him frigidly.

"Anyhow..." Kano stepped over the plummeting temperature of their conversation, "Beer? Coffee? A nice green tea?"

"Coca Cola," Sektor smiled emptily. Two could play at this game, "I like your American drinks."

Kano's smile flickered, but then he threw back his head and laughed.

"I like this kid!" He said in his distinctly Australian accent. He threw an arm around his associate who had been holding the placard but had sidled up on seeing his boss engaged in conversation.

They seated themselves in an airport cafe where the drinks were expensive but the chairs mostly vacant. Sektor sipped on his coke. He would've preferred green tea, but the coke was worth it for the level playingfield it gave this conversation.

"So-o," Kano hummed, and Sektor was alarmed to see that what he had taken to be an eyepatch over the man's right eye, was in fact a whole replacement eye, that lit up with a red prick of light, and was set in a plate of steel embedded into the man's face. "Been a while since the Lin Kuei cropped up in Black Dragon records, thought maybe you guys had been wiped out a few centuries back."

"We're very much still alive." Sektor gave another knife-edge smile. Everything about this man rubbed him up the wrong way. He stunk of danger, but his manners ticked Sektor off in a way that strung out his patience to the point of snapping.

"There's a lil splinter group of yours here in old Nihon, right?"

Sektor's fixed smile melted into a barely contained baring of teeth.

"Wait now, I know the name, gimme a moment, I'm down on my kung fu lore. Shoto ryu?"

" _Shirai Ryu."_ Sektor snapped. "And they have _nothing_ to do with us. Any Shirai Ryu in their right mind flees the scene when they meet the Lin Kuei. We have unsettled debts with the filthy-"

"Okay, gotcha, ancient rivalries blah blah, martial secrets, I've seen the movies. So kiddo, Hong Kong. Plans for a clan holiday or can I assume this little meet up is for something more?" Kano drained a mug of black coffee, then waved the bartender over, "A beer for me mate. Make it a Kirin." He turned expectantly to Sektor and set him with his glowing red eye.

The eye unnerved him. Sektor wondered if its laser could see right through him.

"Indeed, we have business in Hong Kong. Business that would go ahead best if you weren't arming random dockers' unions." Sektor sipped his coca-cola, "I'm interested by the way, I thought the Black Dragon was a profiteering enterprise, how are you making money by outfitting dockyard workers? Is your cut in fish?"

Kano raised his only eyebrow, then turned and paid the barman,

"Cheers mate. Now, could you go and stand just over there, and give us a bit'a privacy. Good onya." Kano swiveled his attention back to Sektor, although the red eye had never left him. "You gotta lose some to make some, kid. Let the market know what's out there. Give the shrimps some big guns and everyone from here to Outworld will be at our doorstep begging. We know markets. Aaand you know a fair amount about tech, for a backwards ninja, do you mind…?" He indicated to Sektor's wrist. Sektor stiffened. Perhaps the eye really could see through things. He shifted his sleeve and let the red gauntlet slide into view.

Kano whistled.

"Sweet as." He stroked his goatee, "What you packing there?"

Sektor was torn between sharing with a fellow enthusiast, and maintaining the element of surprise. Reluctantly, he let his Lin Kuei instincts rule the moment.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

He could see Kano's fingers itching to inspect the gauntlet.

"Those cannisters… is that a flamethrower?"

Sektor let his sleeve slip back over and folded his hands together. He was pleased by the tone of awe in Kano's voice. A little of his caution dissipated. He sat back more comfortably in his chair. A plane was taking off on the runway beyond the enormous wide windows of the departure lounge.

"I'm trying to work on a portable rocket launcher with an automated targetting system too." His eyes flicked over Kano, watching his response carefully, "I'm good with the mechanics, but computer programming isn't a forte of mine."

"Ah, I get ya, I get ya, what program you using to code?" Kano's one real eye was beady and keen.

"Program?" Sektor looked at him, "I work it out on paper, then program by hand so that-"

"Paper?!" Kano rocked back on his chair. "Paper!" He set his beer bottle before he spilled it. "Someone needs to get you resources fast boy, you're gonna go far. No..." An entrepreneurial light lit his eyes from afar, " _We're_ gonna go far. Ah, it's about time you ninja boys had an upgrade. The things I could fit you with, _ah_ \- you wouldn't believe it..."

Sektor let slip a small genuine smile. It was a fine line to walk, giving the Black Dragon enough to interest them, but not enough to appear liked they were needed.

"I would be most interested to hear the thoughts of the Black Dragon on how our systems could be improved."

Kano's lone eyebrow twitched and a ruminating shadow fell over his face,

"But you types – you're all very top down. You've got a head honcho who makes all the big decisions. How's he gonna take all this?"

"I speak on behalf of the Lin Kuei."

"Your boss doesn't mind that we're not the old-fashioned fuddy duddy types, sword fighting and ninja stars 'n' all that?"

"You're input would be an asset to the Lin Kuei." Even if it would take Sektor a long time to persuade the Grandmaster to see the full value of what could happen here. "So… the matter of Hong Kong..."

"Mate, whatever. We chose Hong Kong because it's close but not close enough to swing back on us anytime fast. We'll pick some other sorry gang to flood with high end tech. Hong Kong's all yours."

Sektor bowed his head appreciatively.

"Hmmm." Kano swigged straight out of his beer bottle, "I smell the start of a new enterprisin' partnership. To put it crudely, I know you guys are fucking loaded. I can't think of a better way to be swimming in actual gold medallions than selling to the Lin Kuei."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Mr Kano."

"I'll get my face plate replaced with solid gold. Hey kid, what propulsion system you thinking for your mini rocket launcher? If you went hydraulic, less risk you'd blow yourself up if you wanna keep that flamethrower intact too. A flamethrower, how sweet is that – what nuts kid sticks flamethrowers on his wrist."

"I'm glad you approve," Sektor was tiring a little of endless banter, and there was only so many times his pride could take being called 'kid'. "Let's draw something up in writing, we like to keep records in the clan. Once the Lin Kuei make an agreement, we always pay our debts." Something in Sektor's tone of voice caused a couple of Kano's men standing close by to shiver involuntarily. Kano missed this.

"Mmm mmm I bet you do. With all that _gold_ ," Kano winked. Sektor merely gave him a predatory smile.

"Excellent, let us find somewhere more appropriate to draw up the necessary agreement." Sektor stood, he collected his hair together in a tighter ponytail and fixed it neatly. He straightened his blazer. "I'm afraid I'll also have to insist on the Black Dragon's discretion when it comes to… the _Shirai Ryu._ We are water and oil. We do not mix. And if our suppliers know what's good for them, neither will they."

"Got it flamethrower ninja, no Japanese wannabes, no Hong Kong fishermen. Anyone else on the list of hard-working good-to-honest people you want us to blacklist?"

"No, I think that will do for now."

They made a strange pair as they left the arrival lounge together and made for the monorail terminal. Sektor was proud and calm in his gait; Kano swaggering and larger than life. But in the clattering train car that sped them further into the capital, grander plans for a darker future were born.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Sorry if Kano sounds British. I know literally nothing about Australian slang. It's just me and a half dozen Aussie slang websites sittn here.

All you new folks reading this in just a day - I admire your willpower! And thanks for reading!

Here's a little chapter for Sektor, because as _Two Deaths_ readers will know, I get too attached to the people on the other end of the phoneline and need to give them a cameo too ;)


	31. Comeuppance

Bi-Han knocked cautiously on the door.

"Enter."

Grace's office was the same as it had ever been: a red oak desk piled with neat stacks of paper, a glow of gold light easing from a small stained glass desk lamp, a small clay teapot and cups sitting on a tray, a far end bookshelf full of well-thumbed but well-cared for books. Bi-Han had a sense of unease nonetheless.

"Take a seat." She gestured to a straight back chair before the desk. She never invited him to sit. Bi-Han tried to not let his agitation be seen.

He sat silently and folded his hands together on his lap. She finished up something she was writing and clicked her pen away.

"Zho." Her tone was flat and unreadable. But then it was always flat and unreadable. "You've not reported any mishaps down at the Mah's dockyard."

Had it been a loyalty test? Did she already know there was something going on down there?

"No, sir. Nothing to report."

"And yet you've taken the better part of four days to look into it."

"Just making sure there's nothing there, sir. There's some hostility toward the JFP with regard to the late Herman Mah's murder. I wanted to be sure that's all empty talk."

"And are you? Assured, that is?"

Bi-Han nodded quickly,

"I am now. Mah's union are all talk. They've no resources or allies to speak of. They can complain all they like, but there's nothing else they can do. They're not a threat." There was a long silence after that. Bi-Han tried to keep breathing easily to cover the lie.

Eventually, Grace said,

"Good." She leant back in her chair, lost in thought. Bi-Han felt himself release a slow breath of pent up air. The less the Jade Fist Pact new about the Black Dragon and the sudden intervention that prevented them arming Mah's union, the better. Involving the Lin Kuei directly had set him on edge. There were so many loose ends that could link him to the Lin Kuei. He was beginning to lose track of them all, and with his and Kuai's lives held on the knife edge of this mission, his nerves were a ragged mess. He regulated his breathing and kept his features impassive. He just had to trust that Sektor had done his part well in resolving the arms smuggling issue.

Grace was still looking contemplative. She reached down to the floor next to her desk and brought up a dowdy cardboard box with a brown lid. Grace's eyes met his, and Bi-Han's realised she wasn't wearing her green glasses. Something tightened in his chest as he met those dark unforgiving eyes.

"Got given this." She said casually, "Part of the armistice I arranged with the police force." She knocked the box with her knuckles so it turned to face Bi-Han. A white sticker plastered across the side read _Li-heng Syun._

Bi-Han kept his face immobile, but his breath had stopped in his lungs. He said nothing. Grace flicked the lid of the box and pulled out a thin dossier.

"She had all sorts in here. Including this little item." She slid the dossier across the table to him. In neat handwriting at the top left it read _Zho Jinhai._ Bi-Han reached fingers he realised were quivering slightly and opened the file. "Syun was pretty convinced you're a contract killer from China." Grace had a languid ease to her, like she had before she hanged On-Tou the fishmonger with fish guts, "It's all down there." She pulled out a few photos from the file. There was Herman Mah of course, in two separate photos, one for his head and spine and the other for his remains left in the basement warehouse. And there were other photos too: black and white newspaper cutouts, cold dead faces in all walks of life from all over China. Bi-Han hadn't held back when was first let out of the Lin Kuei Temple to go on solo missions. He didn't need to look at them. He knew with a cursory glance that they were all his.

" _Two_ infiltrators in my branch of the JFP. I guess I'm getting sloppy." Grace poured herself a cup of tea. She did not offer Bi-Han one.

"Li-heng Syun knew nothing about me." He said curtly, "This is pure speculation. There's nothing here. I told you before, I studied martial arts in China, but nothing on the scale I'm being accused of."

"Right." Said Grace, "You'd never killed a soul before you worked for me, is that right?"

He could hear the scathing scepticism in her voice. She knew him too well, he realised. He let the survivalist part of his brain take over, not daring to think through the consequences of failing to convince Grace of his loyalty.

"Maybe I did do some terrible things in China, but I moved to Hong Kong to get away from _this:_ " He pushed away the file venomously, " _Police_ investigations. Are the Jade Fist Pact too almighty to have a criminal in their midst?"

"This is _professional!_ " Grace snapped, finally devoid of her calm facade. Her teacup clacked as she set it back down hard on its saucer. There was iron cold rage in her eyes. And something else too. Something bitter. _Betrayal._ It was strange to think this ruthless gangster might be hurt by him. She pushed the photographs forcefully back in front of him, "These are _professional_ hits. And no, I do not believe you're a freelance killer who just _happened_ to worm his way up the ranks of my clan. I think you're still employed and you're here to take out a hit. So what I'm wondering is – you've been in my employ three-and-a-half months and _I'm_ still alive, who exactly is it you're here to kill?"

Bi-Han stood up suddenly. He could feel cold sweat crawling down his back and ice gathering in layers in his palms. If it came to this, he would take as many with him as he could.

"Sit down." She said so calmly that he obeyed without even thinking. She sipped her tea, then frowned and put it down, pushing it to one side. He'd turned the air cold, he realised, and reigned in his cryomancy quickly before Grace noticed any more than her cold tea. Grace steepled her hands so that lime green painted nails clacked together, "Let me be frank with you Zho, if that even is your name. I despise disloyalty, but the way I see things thus far, there's nothing disloyal about your actions. I've never made a secret of my intentions to take over this clan, and if you have it in mind to assassinate a few of its higher ups, then as far as I'm concerned that's a welcome twist of events." Bi-Han sat in absolute silence. Grace continued. "The deal is this, you come clean to me with what your intentions are here, and you work with me to take down my father and his men. Or you continue to pretend to be whatever you're pretending to be – a cocktail waiter who doesn't drink alcohol and has the skills of a trained killer – and you face the consequences if I find out you're lying. And believe me I will look into every single lead in Li-heng Syun's case file on you."

Bi-Han swallowed. This was all happening so fast. Li-heng Syun seemed to have the drop on him even from beyond the grave. He could confess his position as an infiltrating assassin to Grace, but that not only risked exposing the Lin Kuei, but could also simply be a ruse to get a confession out of him. He'd expect nothing less from someone who's daily light reading was Machiavelli. But then there was the problem of trying to return to his almost shredded cover. Exactly how much did Syun have on him? Could he say for certain that no CCTV at any of his other targets ever picked him up? And the more questions were asked about those kills as a set, the greater the chance that his cryomancy might be exposed. If Grace found the proof she needed (and who even knew what self-proclaimed proof a Triad leader needed to confirm disloyalty), then he and his brother would be summarily executed. He tried to weigh up the odds in the seconds that remained to him.

 _No more regrets, no more mistakes._ He let the natural cold of indifference that came so easily to him settle over his features.

"Burn those files in front of me and I'll talk."

Grace looked at him. There was silence. Slowly, she opened a draw. It was loud in the absence of everything else. She clicked on a lighter and held the paper dossier to it. The flames burned blue with ink. She let them drop onto the table as they smoked and curled and flaked into ash. Bi-Han met her eyes again, this time unafraid.

"I am a contract killer. I will not say who I work for, and neither will you look into it. I will tell you my targets and follow your orders on how best you wish them taken out to aid your ascendency to the head of this clan." He hoped he had read her right. He hoped he hadn't just signed his own death warrant. And Kuai Liang. Kuai Liang. Bi-Han swore that when he got home – if he got home – he would hold his brother in his arms like he used to when they were much younger and tell him how much he meant to him. Kuai Liang had to know that Bi-Han would do anything for him, that in his last moments he wanted nothing more than to be close to the only other living person he cared about, to the only person who had ever made him unselfish.

Grace put on her green glasses and stood.

"Let's go somewhere more private, Zho. Planning treason in JFP property is asking for trouble."

Bi-Han looked up at her, still not moving. His head was reeling, and he needed simple assuring words to let him know this wasn't the end. She gave him a slightly stiff smile, but it caught a little of her old self in it.

"Why are all my best people infiltrators? The competent ones are always snatched up first. Walk with me, Zho, I'm not going to have you killed today."

Bi-Han got up and followed her.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Yep things are getting hairy for Mr Perfect.

Thank you for all your supportive comments on FanficNet, A03, tumblr and elsewhere, it's so encouraging to have so many dedicated readers and kind words, I read them all and appreciate them all!

Thanks also to 2666ll for the amazingly fast work on the Chinese translation of Black Ice!


	32. The Path to the Stars is Painted

Bi-Han sat in one of the low comfortable chairs. A thin paper folder lay against his crisp pressed shirt. He would rather have had any other of Grace's employees accompany him here, but Grace was grooming him for promotion into the high end ranks so that meant he was sitting here with Anton Kwan. Even Anton could see Bi-Han was going places, and had foregone his bitterness for a kind of chummy, honeyed banter that Bi-Han found worse than any insult the man had ever thrown at him.

"Huh huh, I remember my first – it wasn't much, pretty small. Some people are embarrassed by their early one's when they become big shots. Not me. Gotta have pride in your roots. Mine's become so much more – incorporated into the larger design. No regrets. That's what that says. Something truly Anton Kwan about that."

Bi-Han had to hold from gagging. Any man who talked about himself in the third person should be thrown out of a high window in his opinion. He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere,

"Is this place JFP?"

"Sure is," Anton leaned back and his hand found a carved wooden bowl full of nibbles. He picked up the bowl and threw sesame snacks into his mouth one by one. "Controlled at some of the highest levels. Grace didn't just send you to the local parlour. I'm telling you, not just anyone comes here, not even in the clan. This is the kind of place you meet people you don't want to piss off, you get me?"

"I get you." Bi-Han said in slightly mocking imitation that Anton missed.

"Mind if I…-?" Anton indicated to the paper folder.

Bi-Han reluctantly passed it over. Anton crossed his legs and settled deeper into the chair. He threw another sesame snack in his mouth and opened the folder.

"Mmm. Beautiful. Artist's eye, you got there, Zho. Something real powerful here." Anton's eyes roved through the intricate black patterns laid out on the page before him. An interweaving design caught up in knots and geometric shapes stood sharp and yet invited the eye to wander into darker hidden mysteries.

A man in a sharp plain black suit with gold cufflinks stopped in front of their seats. A thin white line of a scar ran from just under his right eye all the way down his cheek where it became lost in shadow. His footsteps were so quiet in his gleaming polished shoes, that Anton did not hear him. Bi-Han had seen enough high class tailoring now to know that this was someone important. He stood and bowed. Anton sprung out of his seat, sending sesame biscuits rolling on the floor. The paper folder he'd been flicking through slid out of his grasp and he had to flail wildly to stop from dropping it, nearly overbalancing in the process.

"M-mr Tse! Didn't see you there, sorry!" Anton stood up straight whilst surreptitiously nudging a biscuit under the chair with his foot.

Mr Tse did not look impressed. His eyes swept over the mess on the floor. Instead of feeling glee at Anton's mishap, Bi-Han felt he was somehow being tarnished with the same brush by force of his proximity. Mr Tse turned thin arching eyebrows on Bi-Han. He surveyed him as one might a stain. Anton was shifting from foot to foot, hoping to catch Mr Tse's eyes and make amends.

"Ah- Mr Tse, this is Zho Jinhai. He's here for his first tattoo." In clearly unplanned move, Anton proffered the paper file.

Mr Tse looked down at the outstretched file. For a moment, Bi-Han thought he would completely ignore it. Instead, he reached a hand into his pockets and pulled out a pair of silk black gloves. He pulled them on deliberately. Then he reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and snapped open a glasses case. He slowly cleaned each lens with a black square, then put the case away. He set the glasses on his nose, then finally took the file from Anton. He flicked it open and looked at the design. His eyes glanced up to Bi-Han. He nodded once, then silently handed the file back. He took off his glasses, then took off his gloves. Then he left.

Anton slumped back shakily into the chair.

"Fuck me." He sounded exhausted, "I really fucked that one up."

Bi-Han took back his file and sat down.

Eventually a woman in a dark purple suit, violet nail varnish and magenta lipstick stepped into the waiting area. She indicated for Bi-Han to follow her.

"I'll come with." Anton made to get up.

"I've got this." Bi-Han said, in a tone that made it quite clear Anton had done enough. Anton sat back down with a slow sinking reluctance. He nodded and gave a small swallow. Bi-Han followed the woman past a velvet curtain tied back with a gold tassel. He was shown into a large room sectioned off with richly carved wooden screens, set with enamel inlay. The woman held out a hand for the file. Bi-Han passed it over. She set it down on a small round wooden table next to an upright chair and a long low divan.

"In your own time, Mr Zho, please hang your jacket and shirt here," She indicated a stand, to her left. "And make yourself comfortable. Refreshments will be with you shortly. And our resident artist, Yiu Hin Ki will join you once he has finished mixing his inks."

When she left, Bi-Han paused to looked around him and consider what was happening. Bright ornate hanging lanterns lit the quiet private space. Somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of a traditional guzheng. He wondered faintly if it was a live performance. This was the first place he had visited that spoke suave without trying. He'd seen his share of tacky and sleazy, but this place was straight up – with no irony – a place for the upper echelons. He felt so out of place his skin was crawling. _It's very traditional._ He tried to calm himself, _I can do traditional. I grew up in one of the few remaining ancient Chinese martial clans. This is closer to home than anywhere else I've been yet._ Perhaps it was that last thought that had him on edge. Home was not a place of comforts. It was a place where rules and traditions were followed to the line and letter. And where failures were instantly known. He hung up his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt.

A tattoo was quite a permanent feature for his very impermanent position as a member of the Jade Fist Pact. Grace had been emphatic that if he wanted to get within an arms reach of her father, he was going to need to get a lot more traditional in his approach to Triad loyalty. Bi-Han had asked Sektor several times to consult the Grandmaster directly on whether he should proceed with this, but Sektor had instead insisted that Bi-Han merely do whatever was necessary to get the mission done. A part of Bi-Han was still fretting over how the Grandmaster would take the matter. He had taken precautions in his own kind of way by refusing to let anyone else design the tattoo. It needed to be a big, impressive statement of loyalty, but no one need know who that loyalty was to. Within the curling sprawl of geometric designs and flowing knots was the underlying motif of the Lin Kuei, almost invisible save to those who knew the emblem like they knew their own name. If Bi-Han was going to be accused of anything when he returned home to the Temple, it at least wouldn't be disloyalty.

Yiu Hin Ki was a diminutive man with a long straggling grey beard and flyway hair. He shuffled into the room in a full hanfu with him a gleaming oiled wooden box in his arms. Bi-Han felt suddenly out of place in his modern clothes, wishing for his familiar Lin Kuei uniform. The man bowed once, low, to Bi-Han, then set up his box and began to take out needles and inks, aligning them neatly on the small table by the divan. A young man came in and gave Bi-Han a choice of drinks and small delicacies that were left within arms reach for his pleasure. Just when Bi-Han thought they were going to start. A young woman entered in ornate formal traditional clothing and set down a guzheng of stunning craftsmanship. Bi-Han could see the curling inset of mother-of-pearl wrought into the flight of cranes wings on the instrument's body. He couldn't stop his mouth from opening slightly in surprise. The young woman knelt behind the instrument and drew her fingers down its strings. A shiver swept through Bi-Han.

"Sir," The artist indicated the divan, "If I may trouble you to lie on your front?" He opened the paper file and looked long at design within. Bi-Han reluctantly turned his back on the musician and lay down on the divan.

There, in the web of soft continual music with the prick and score of needles pressing into his skin, he waited in a quiet that doused him in peace. The repetitive prickle of pain kept his senses in tact, whilst the rippling melodies of the guzheng took his mind into meditative stillness. There were pauses every couple of hours, where Bi-Han and the artists would stretch and relax. Bi-Han took a slight sip of clear baijiu left in a glass thimble for him. The drink was sharp, but melded and belonged with this ritual. He picked at a selection of dim sum, letting the fine tastes roll about his mouth and mix with the drink. He laid his head back down on the soft pillows folding his arms beneath them. The familiar prick, prick, prick of the tattoo needles returned to his skin, and he closed his eyes.

By the end of the first day, Bi-Han could feel every needle that passed over his spine. His muscles were tight and restless, and he had a faint throbbing in his head. He waited out the end of the session, but found himself faint as he slowly sat up. He drained a glass of water, but the dizziness did not subside. He flexed, feeling the shift of raw skin over his bones. He set his teeth on edge and devoured everything on the small table in an effort to banish the weakness flushing through his limbs. He felt strangely naked without the usual strength in his body, and for one crushing moment was afraid. He was in a dangerous place in a dangerous city and the prowess he always relied on was failing him. He closed his eyes and took slow deep breaths. The food felt good. The dizziness abated a little and he stood slowly.

The end of the second day was worse. Even though he was better prepared, his lethargy from the day before sapped him of his strength.

"It is done." Yiu Hin Ki said. He wheeled over a full length mirror and pointed it at an angle so that it caught the reflection of another mirror behind Bi-Han. The thing was magnificently done. Bi-Han's entire back had been turned into a myriad of twisting black angles and curls. He could see the quiet knots and shadows of the Lin Kuei, fluid in the dark of the tattoo as his skin moved with his flexing body. Bi-Han nodded his appreciation but remained seated. After eating everything laid out for him, and still not wishing to move, he jerked his fingers towards the empty tray.

"More food." He said curtly, biting off each word as he felt his skin flare and burn with every inflection of his movement.

Yiu Hin Ki bowed, collected his tools together, and left. A young man brought in a platter of rich foods. Bi-Han cleaned the entire tray off without paying much attention to what he was eating. He'd left the baijiu untouched today and went instead for drinking water by the glassful. When he'd eaten his fill, a slow aching drowsiness seeped through him. He stood slowly, feeling the blood rush to his head. He slowed his heart rate and chilled his stinging back with a wave of undetectable cryomancy just under his skin. The cool of the ice helped and he stood proud and tall. He still flinched as he replaced his shirt and jacket, but he walked unhampered and steady. Just as he got to the velvet curtain, he heard footsteps stop behind him. He turned slowly.

Mr Tse, the scarred man from yesterday stood before him.

"This way please, Mr Zho."

Bi-Han's heart sunk. He was tired and felt like his skin was on fire. His head was still a little dizzy and he knew he wasn't looking his best. He was faintly aware that this was all probably intentional. If he was going to meet someone important, they would be choosing this moment – when he was at his weakest – to make a statement. The thought did not fill Bi-Han with confidence. He tried to tuck his shirt in better, although the pull of fabric on his back made him bite his tongue. He did up his top button and straightened up his tie as best he could. He combed his hair back with his fingers and glanced in the shining polished wooden surface of a screen as he passed to check his reflection.

He found himself in an elevator with Mr Tse, standing silently as it ascended up through floors in the twenties. They stopped at floor thirty-one, and Bi-Han, already feeling slightly faint, had to hold his head steady as the elevator opened onto a corridor with glass walls looking straight down onto Hong Kong below. Bi-Han was led into a room with all glass walls and low grey sofas. Everything was a pale shade of grey so that he felt like he was falling through the stratosphere. There was one other man in the room. He didn't look like the picture of Grace and Nat's father Bi-Han had seen on the shelf in Nat's apartment, but then nothing looked quite right to Bi-Han at the moment. The man already in the room was lean with hair cut close to the skull. He had wiry functional muscles and tattoos up his neck and spilling out of his loud red shirt. He exchanged a look with Mr Tse, that Bi-Han recognised as one exchanged between equals. This wasn't the head of the Yeung dynasty then.

Mr Tse seated himself on the other end of the sofa to the red shirted man. Bi-Han was left awkwardly standing before them. To cover the awkwardness, he bowed low to each of them. He ignored the flare of pain as his shirt pressed against his back.

"Sit." The new man pointed to the sofa opposite them. A small glass table stood between them. Bi-Han tried to ignore the mounting pressure they were clearly trying to let steep in the room. "So, you're Zho Jinhai." That was the red shirted man. Bi-Han bowed his head in assent but said nothing. The man nodded, "Know who I am?"

Bi-Han hated not being in the know. He wished Grace had given him more of a run down on who was close to her father. She had refused however, telling him they enjoyed the power that the element of surprise gave them. He would ingratiate himself better by appearing more vulnerable before them. Bi-han despised the idea despite seeing it's wisdom.

"No, sir." He said quietly.

"I'm Julius Hau." The man said, I'm the person most people in the Jade Fist hope they never see." He flashed a smile and Bi-Han caught a glimpse of two gold teeth set in that smile. "My associate here is Clarence Tse. He says you've got quite the carpet page for your first tattoo."

Clarence Tse said nothing. Julius seemed to prefer the sound of his own voice anyway,

"Hurts like a bitch, I bet."

Bi-Han found Julius' attempts at casual talk far more disturbing than formality. He sat up a little straighter.

"I didn't know what to expect," Bi-Han admitted. He wasn't sure if he should agree with the man or if showing weakness in this instance was unwise. He let his sentence trail off. He felt foolish and uncomfortable. There was a long pause where Bi-Han was aware that both men were scrutinising him. Their dark eyes followed the exhausted slope of his shoulder and the crease of shadows in his expressions. Bi-Han's mind wandered to places of quiet and safety. He could almost feel his room back at the Lin Kuei Temple. It would be lit by moonlight now, and there would be that deafening silence that comes after thick snowfall. Only Kuai's soft breathing as he slept would punctuate the darkness. A simple mat would be under his bare feet, the cool solid dark of his prison would be behind him. Anything for that familiar cell just now.

"Gracie says you're a good killer," Julius said abruptly. Bi-Han blinked to attention. "That she picked you up off little Nat." Bi-Han wondered if little Nat knew he was called little Nat by those close to his father. He thought of Nathaniel's awkward stiffness whenever mention was made of his father. Perhaps he did know after all.

Bi-Han nodded slowly.

"She sent us some photos of a dockworker you cut up," Julius kept constant eye contact with him. Bi-Han felt Clarence Tse's stare coming at him from an angle as if surveying all the blind spots while Julius took him head on. This felt like a fight that didn't involve violence. Those were Bi-Han's worst kind of fights. "Of course, it's pretty easy to cut up some working man on the street. Do you think you're a big shot, just because you offed a fisherman, Zho?"

Bi-Han shook his head equally slowly, hoping that was the response that was wanted from him.

"You've been executing police informants for Grace for the last few months."

That wasn't really a question. Bi-Han frowned slightly. Strictly speaking, Grace wasn't meant to have an enforcer. She had told him her father's people knew she'd been ordering killings and wouldn't be surprised by his role in this. But she'd also told him enforcing was undertaken by a different wing of the family, and in her father's eyes, was not a suitable endeavour for a young lady to be involved in. All of this swam in a jumbled mess through Bi-Han's thoughts as he sat before Julius Hau and Clarence Tse.

"Yes..." He said carefully, "They put an undercover cop in our midst. It was my task to… dissuade anyone from communicating with the police. As a kind of retribution."

"Are you aware retribution is handled by a different branch of the Jade Fist?" Mr Tse spoke for the first time. He had a sharpness to his tone. Bi-Han decided this was a man who like rules and order.

"I am aware of that..." Bi-Han continued in his slow pace, thinking over his words twice before he said each one, "But it's not my place to question orders from a superior."

Grace could take the heat. She was more than capable of diffusing situations. She also didn't have a black sprawling mass of wet ink and pricked skin clawing across her back.

Mr Tse's eyes narrowed at the reply, but Julius shrugged as if to say fair answer.

Beyond the wide glass windows, lights were coming out all over Hong Kong as the evening settled into dusk. They reminded Bi-Han of fireflies over ornamental ponds. So fleeting and engineered.

"History lesson time," Said Julius, and Bi-Han's tired mind went to Kuai's history teacher, Mr Martin, head-of-year-seven. _What a moron that man is. Although he did say Kuai was a star pupil. Hm, maybe I'll cut him some slack after all._ "The Jade Fist Pact was formed first as a family affair. It arose to protect family businesses and traditional values. It's been run by the Yeung family since it's inception, ninety years ago. It's old, respected, and it keeps its own. I maybe not be Yeung, but there's been a Hau serving the dynasty since 1954. How long have the Zho been serving the Jade Fist?"

Bi-Han licked a lip. Even tired, he could see where this was going.

"Six months, sir."

"Six months." Julius repeated. "Which makes you street trash. The kind who don't get within shouting distance of Ambrose Yeung."

Bi-Han stayed quiet. He knew all this, but the silver-lining was that if they really didn't want him, this conversation would not be happening.

"Now, you might be wondering what are you doing here. I know I fucking am." Julius threw Clarence Tse a glare as he said this, "But the simple fact is, Clarence and Mr Yeung don't want you in Grace's hands. And they seem to think you might be too great an asset to throw back on the street where you belong."

Bi-Han's focus honed in. The smell of success and the instincts of a predator heightened his awareness. He pushed all pain, discomfort, and exhaustion to a small place at the back of his mind, crushing it into a manageable size.

Julius leaned forward and clenched his hands over the glass table, making the tattoos on his biceps ripple and snarl.

"You mighta caught on that I've not big on that assessment. So I've been given free reign to set you the tasks that prove you're worthwhile to Mr Yeung."

Bi-Han's heart sunk a little. He'd been expecting something of this nature, but a part of him had been hoping six months work for the JFP and a full back tattoo might be enough to prove himself to them.

"I've got something relatively simple in mind," Julius' tone was such that Bi-Han instantly disbelieved him. "All you have to do is persuade Tiger Chen to pay up some money he owes. Simple enforcer stuff."

Mr Tse shifted disapprovingly in his seat. That told Bi-Han all he needed to know about this so-called simple mission.

"Tiger is based out of Kowloon. Heard of it? You're from rural China, right?"

Bi-Han smiled stiffly. His short time in the Jade Fist Pact had taught him enough about Kowloon. He'd never been, but he knew not to pursue a target that made it there.

"Right," Julius was enjoying this set up at least, "Well, we'll get you the details, and you can get on chatting to Tiger Chen." Julius stood and stretched. His skin was a dark ashen brown, hiding the detail of the black ink tattoos until he moved. In those instants long leaping dragons and tigers came to life on his arms. He gave Bi-Han a cold grin and Clarence a careless salute.

Bi-Han followed Clarence Tse back into the elevator. The doors closed on the panorama vista of the city by night. The lift gave a soft _bing_ and began to descend. Mr Tse stood perfectly straight, looking forward.

"Tiger Chen is the son of a Triad boss. While no police will enter Kowloon Walled City, neither will any Jade Fist. The territory is covered by three different clans, who shared a tentative peace for the sake of business. None of those clans are the Jade Fist. Outsiders are not permitted to wear firearms into the district."

"Not a problem. I don't use guns anyway."

Mr Tse gave him a sidelong look,

"Julius Hau is sending you to Kowloon in the hope that it will kill you. It is a petty, idiotic idea that risks sparking off a clan war." It was petty and idiotic because it might start a war then, not because it might cost Bi-Han his life. At least he was getting a clear read on the motives of Tse and Hau.

"How soon does this need to be done? Is there a time limit on it?"

"Get it done within the month. Julius will want it done sooner, but if you want any chance of success you will wait until that tattoo heals and your intelligence is good. Meet with Kenneth Yeung. He can fill you in on the details surrounding the money Chen owes us."

Bi-Han nodded. He could feel tiredness crawling back into his bones again. He clenched his jaws tight to suppress a yawn.

"Thank-you." He said quietly as the elevator _bing-_ ed and the doors slid open.

"I merely care about logistics and placing information where it should be. Do not mistake my divulging of information for any concern over your wellbeing or success. You are just another number on a sheet."

Bi-Han nodded through eyes narrowed with sleep, his words came out a little less guarded than normal,

"That's okay. I hate people too. Night."

He walked back through the tattoo parlour, its lights now dimmed and rooms quiet. He hailed a cab and tried to find a way to collapse in its back seat without leaning on his back.

When he got back to the apartment it was nearly midnight. He was hungry again, but more than anything he wished for his bed. He kicked off his shoes and felt for the light switch. When he couldn't find it, he padded blind into the kitchen.

"Kuai?" He called sleepily.

He heard footsteps hurry from the bedroom and a small voice said,

"I'm here."

"Good." Bi-Han walked passed his brother and lay down face first on his futon mattress. He heard anxious footsteps follow him and hover nearby. Bi-Han remembered distantly that at one point he'd made some promise to himself to give a message. He couldn't remember the exact context. He turned his head just enough to free his mouth from the pillow, "I care about you, Kuai Liang. I care a lot."

He drifted immediately into a deep sleep.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I may never have had a tattoo before, but I have seen Ninja Assassin. Legit sources and whatnot ;) I also watched a cool little documentary about a Hong Kong tattoo artist (link is on A03)

 _guzheng_ – Chinese zither

 _baijiu_ – clear Chinese alcohol made from a fermented grain

Kowloon Walled City was knocked down in 1993, but if you think I'm going to miss out on the opportunity to have it in a story then think again! I'm having it. The time gap isn't that big given this story is set around 2005ish. Kowloon is such a bizarrely stunning place and who knows when I'll get to write about Hong Kong again.

I also apologise for having given people normal Cantonese names up until now when in HK crime movies everyone is literally called Dragon Tom, Stinky Jim, and Alligator Steven.


	33. Hunters Come In From The Cold

Kuai woke up when the alarm by his bed went off. He sat up blearily. Bi-Han's bed was rolled up in the corner. His brother had probably been up all night. Kuai yawned and rolled his own bed away. He spent the next hour going through martial arts forms in the bedroom. When Bi-Han wasn't about, he could do them all in his pyjamas. Afterwards, he stretched and opened the door to the kitchen. Kuai's face turned a shade of pink.

Bi-Han was in the kitchen. He had an enormous scroll out on the kitchen table – the kind Kuai had only ever seen in the Temple. There were newspaper cuttings all over the floor and ink pots, brushes and biros on the kitchen surfaces. But Bi-Han wasn't alone. There was a lady with him. Kuai recognised her. She had pointed a gun in his face.

"Oh." Bi-Han looked up as the door opened, "This is Grace Yeung. She's just helping me do some research. Did you not get dressed before doing your form?"

Kuai was completely thrown. Grace Yeung's face was impassive behind round green glasses. Instead of answering, Kuai grabbed the door and shut it again.

Bi-Han shrugged,

"He gets shy."

"I'm not shy!" Kuai said loudly from bedroom. The door remained firmly shut.

"He is." Bi-Han insisted amiably.

Grace tapped the scroll, her long fingernail resting on the name Yeung Kenneth.

"When you visit Uncle Ken, remember he is proud and jealous. He covets my father's position, but knows he doesn't have the savvy to make a move against him. He will pass you off as unimportant because of your association with me. Neither my father or uncle believe I have the prowess to challenge them. They wish to keep me de-fanged, but do not really believe I could ever have the resources to pose a threat. Use this to your advantage. Let them see you as a presumptuous upstart. Get yourself into places where rumours and secrets are dropped easily. Before you go into Kowloon you need to know every player and all the petty hates they harbour for every other player."

"And your Uncle's people know all this?"

"They're the link between the JFP and the families operating out of Kowloon. There are arrangements and deals cut between them, suppliers shared and shipping terminals leant and borrowed. Find out if this Tiger Chen is well-protected."

Bi-Han passed her a bemused look,

"If he's the son of a Triad boss, then surely it goes without saying that he's well-protected?"

Grace shook her head,

"Kowloon is a peace built on eggshells. When someone threatens that peace, there will often be an agreement made between the families tacitly accepting that the threat is to be cut loose and is fair game as recompense."

"Harsh." Bi-Han replied, "So much for keeping one's own." The idea of the Lin Kuei caring more about peace with another organisation than their own members was inconceivable to Bi-Han.

"Sometimes survival creates strange bedfellows. Anyway, if Tiger Chen has disrupted the balance in Kowloon, then it may be that he doesn't have the full backing of his clan. Make damn sure he doesn't have clan backing before you start enforcing anything he doesn't comply with."

A small face appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. Kuai stepped timidly into the room, this time fully dressed. He placed his feet carefully so as not to disrupt the organised clutter.

"There's food in the fridge." Bi-Han did not look up from the notes he was writing.

Kuai found an excess of half eaten takeaway food in card boxes. He took a pair of chopsticks from the drying rack by the sink and sat himself in a chair in the corner, drawing his legs up so as not to disturb the mess. He ate silently, watching Bi-Han and Grace talk tactics and names, and scour maps. He crunched a waterchestnut in his mouth and slurped up cold noodles, blue eyes watching with increasing concern the more he listened. He knew he shouldn't speak, but the severity of the operation they were planning made his heart beat fast with worry. He waited until there was a pause in their conversation.

"Do you _have_ to go to this dangerous place?"

Bi-Han and Grace both looked over at him. Kuai felt like he was getting stared down by two Bi-Hans. They returned to their business without answering him. Kuai looked sadly at the takeaway box in his hands. Eventually they packed up. Bi-Han collected everything into a thick brown paper folder then vanished into the bedroom to stow it away.

"Do not worry for your brother."

Kuai looked up abruptly. Grace's voice was devoid of emotion, but somehow reassuring.

"He is more than capable," She continued, "He has been given a task to complete alone by those who wish to see him fail. Little do they know that when your brother works alone, he is his most deadly. It is the people in Kowloon who should be afraid. They will see too late that a wolf walks among them."

Kuai's eyes widened. He looked with a new respect at this lady who seemed to understand Bi-Han so well. He nodded slowly, then finished up his breakfast.

"Right," Bi-Han returned to the kitchen, glanced out the window, then pulled a black waterproof off the coathanger and buttoned it up over his suit. "I'll get over to Ken's now, don't bother telling Anton. I don't want him with me. The _introduction_ he set up for me at the tattoo parlour was spectacularly bad."

"Yes, I apologise for that." Grace clicked away a pen and placed it in the breast pocket of her blazer, "He was meant to give you a heads up on important people you were meeting, I've already let him know exactly what I thought of his exploits. You don't want time off to let the tattoo heal? You'll want to be at your best going into Kowloon."

"I will be at my best. Your uncle won't be any trouble. I'll be gathering intelligence, nothing physical."

"It's always physical when you're involved," Grace murmured half under her breath.

A slightly cocky grin escaped Bi-Han. He put a hand on Kuai's head as he and Grace made for the front door.

"Keep safe. Learn lots." He ruffled Kuai's hair.

Kuai's eyes lit up at the contact and he gave a small, warm smile. The hush of heavy rain filled the apartment as the door opened, then muffled again as it shut behind them.

"Nice kid." Grace said as she hailed a taxi.

Bi-Han nodded. He paused.

"If something happens to me-…" He looked at her, rain slicking his hair to his head and sending his waterproof sleek shining black.

"Won't your people come for him?"

Bi-Han nodded but there was grim expression on his face,

"Yes. But don't let them have him. Keep him in school. He's bright. He's wasted being forced to follow my path."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"But if it does-!" Bi-Han interjected with sudden urgency.

"I'll take care of him. You've worked up enough credit in my service to keep your brother for a long time."

Bi-Han calmed. He nodded the silent thanks he couldn't express as Grace's taxi pulled up.

It was after school that day that Kuai decided to face up to the silences in his heart. He had avoided returning to Shek Pai Wan Estate. Every time he set foot there he seemed to make matters worse. But time had gone on long enough, and mistakes or no, he had to face up to what had been done. He had to know if Jia and her family would get through this. Perhaps it was selfish, when seeing him would only hurt them, and Kuai had tried his best to let that thought keep him from hunting for answers, but now he wasn't so sure that was why he had stayed away. A part of him knew it would be easier not to look them in the eyes, not to see their pain and grieve with them, and that was a kind of cowardice he wanted nothing to do with.

He took the lonely meandering path that cut through hills still sheathed in the dregs of old winter. There were no glorious autumn colours this time. Only leafless branches and a mild dead wind. Too quickly his feet reached Jia's apartment block. Kuai was wary this time. He was under no illusions that this was a place he was not welcome in. It was already getting dark, and he was conscious that the more of a name for himself Bi-Han made, the more some doors opened, whilst others closed firmly – for the both of them. Everything about the estate felt more hostile, but he supposed that might be because it was winter, or his own guilt.

He walked to the sixteenth floor. He liked the burn in his legs from the climb. It felt like penance.

When he reached the door it was open. His heart dropped, and for a moment he was paralysed. He wasn't sure he could go in and find answers. _Do you want what's easy, or do you want the truth?_ He screwed up his eyes and let out a deep breath. He opened them again and nudged the door wider. The living room was empty. Not just empty of people, but empty. It was empty of everything that made it Li-heng. The only thing in it was one of the large sofas. It was at a strange angle, as if someone had realised too late that its bulk wasn't going to get through the front door with any ease. On closer inspection, there were other things too. There was leg of a doll in the corner, and a beer cap near the skirting board. There was a scrumpled up thin cardigan on the floor next to the helmet of a kamen rider action figure and single blue woolly glove. Kuai stepped gingerly into the room he had received so much hospitality in. He felt as though he walked on holy ground, with a sacred silence and a reverence in the very air.

The kitchen was bare too. There was an empty sweet wrapper on the floor and a single teaspoon on the counter top. The bedrooms were shells of their former selves. Some had the skeletal frames of bunkbeds still standing, though all the mattresses were gone. Kuai stood in Jia's room, looking at the bed that under her instruction had become a pirate ship so vividly depicted that he still felt agitated standing on the floor, where any ocean monster might snap him up. The bed in Jia's mother's room was gone. Kuai got down on his knees and wiggled the part of the skirting board away that concealed the hidden compartment there. He reached his hand in. Empty. Whatever that meant. He shuffled the board back then walked slowly back out of the house.

"All gone." Croaked a voice. Kuai jumped. A kindly looking old woman was hanging a red tablecloth out to dry on the balcony railing. "Packed up and left. Nice family." She said a little sadly, "Been there years."

Kuai's heart lifted a little. He wondered what it meant that he was glad to have someone corroborate Bi-Han's claim that he hadn't killed Jia.

"Do you know where they went?"

"Didn't say." The old woman patted down her tablecloth.

"When did they go?"

"Hmm." The old lady put her hand on her hips thoughtfully, then took off her glasses and cleaned them on a pinafore. She put them back on the tip of her nose, "A while now. Maybe three months ago? I remember the day though, what a surprise! A police officer came and the next second – out everything goes! Fast as you like! Perhaps they got moved up the list. They're knocking down the buildings you know, they're going to take my house away." She tutted and shook her head.

"They're not-" Kuai interjected, "Didn't you hear? The contract got revoked. The developer got caught with cocaine and now they're not going to knock your house down."

"Hmm? What's that? Not knocking my house down? First I've heard of it!"

Kuai forgot that these concerns belonged to other worlds as he got caught up in his outrage,

"They didn't even tell you the development stopped? Didn't you get a letter?"

"No letter. Not after they told me they're going to knock my house down."

Kuai's face crinkled in anger, but he saw that the old lady had started sweeping the concrete infront of her front door. She hummed as the did, and Kuai felt helpless on her behalf. A part of him wondered if Bi-Han had felt sad for so many different people for so many different things before he had closed himself off from feeling for others. Kuai's Lin Kuei schooling battered through and quashed his emotion. _Three months ago. When Syun was killed. Perhaps the police moved Jia's family to protect them. But why only then? They needed help a long time before. Maybe it would have ruined Syun's cover…_ He sighed. The tails of answers slipped away from him like ribbons on the wind. He looked up and realised with a blush that the old lady had stopped sweeping and was looking at him.

"Poor child. I don't know where your friends went, but maybe you can ask Old Daniel Fan if he knows."

Kuai's eyes went bright and hopeful,

"Old Daniel Fan?"

"That's his name," She said, as if Kuai had brought it up and not her, "He owns the biggest truck in the estate. I always told him, it's too big for the corner between one and seven, but Daniel never did listen to advice. But he's got a good heart, I told Syun, you know he moved most of the poor folks here from the last resettlement and such reasonable prices-" She looked conspiratorial and hunched forward as she whispered, "Even some people for free – and just him and his sons moving so many people. Heart of gold, that rascal. Anyway. Old Daniel moved them out I'm sure of it. His red van – red such an out of taste colour, I've told him so many times – I saw his red van infront of the block the day they were moving."

Kuai sifted through this methodically.

"Okay… thanks. Does he live nearby?"

She showed him from the balcony, using the city spread below them like a map. Kuai thanked her again and set off again, this time lighter inside. It was getting late, and he wanted to be home on the off chance Bi-Han was home for supper, but tomorrow Old Daniel Fan would help him solve this puzzle. _Jia is alive_ _though_ _._ It felt good to know that. Bi-Han hadn't just said that to stop Kuai hating him.

By five P.M. Bi-Han was sitting in a blazing hot sauna, with his head tilted all the way back against the wall, dying to leave. He felt like the room was trying to sap every instance of power from him and it was taking all of his concentration not to burst into a full snowstorm and bring the temperature back to a tolerable level. It was hard to hear the conversation over the pound of his own blood in his head.

"Well, that's what I'm _telling_ you, Gene." Uncle Ken liked conducting business in bath houses, which was a travesty in Bi-Han's mind, because they were all a terrible quality and far too hot. "It's not that he doesn't owe us, it's just that if we wanted that cash back, we should have come for it months ago! Didn't we agree something like – we'd let it pass because Walter shot up the front of one of their stalls? In maybe April last year? Is that a thing?"

"Sure," said another man, reclining peaceably against the wooden slat benches and stone tiled walls. "There was some squabble and Tiger said we had to pay damages."

"And you just do what Tiger fucking Chen asks?"

Bi-Han realised everyone was looking at him. He supposed he must have said that last sentence out loud. Nevermind, his head was killing him anyway.

"We're the JFP, not some property agency." He continued now that he'd begun. "What's busting his shop front up got to do with money he owes for drugs?" A single bead of sweat crawled down Bi-Han's back. He wondered if he'd sweated so much there was no liquid left in him to sweat out.

Grace's uncle peered at Bi-Han through the heat of the sauna. He probably couldn't see much, Bi-Han surmised, as the man wore glasses and they were opaque with humidity. Bi-Han could see him perfectly. He was diminutive, like a crinkly walnut, and skin salt brown from long dog hours working at sea.

"Hey..." Uncle Ken leaned forward, as if he could see through his glasses, "I knew the name Zho rang a bell – you're the kid who worked with Nat, put Tommy Chow's eyes out!"

Bi-Han stared at him, he had done a lot worse for the Jade Fist Pact under Grace Yeung, but he supposed this is what she'd meant about her exploits slipping under the radar.

"Sure." He said slowly, thinking of Herman Mah's disconnected skull making national headlines.

Uncle Ken nudged Eugene, a broad muscled man next to him.

"Tommy Chow's gonna get a fucking dog. Like for blind people."

"That's because he _is_ blind, boss."

"Well sure. He is after Nat's boy over here stuck knives in his eyes!"

It irritated Bi-Han more than he could say to be called 'Nat's boy'.

"Just my thumbs." He smiled coldly, "I just stuck my thumbs in his eyes. Eyes are so fragile. Don't need a knife to make them burst. A finger will do." He relished in the shiver that rippled through the hot humidity.

"Well..." Uncle Ken tried to collect the disturbed atmosphere back into what he considered to be a respectable meeting. There could be nothing respectable about sitting in a room full of naked sweating men, as far as Bi-Han was concerned. Everything about this was grotesque and full of proximity and sweat. "Well either way. There's no need to go causing a fuss with Tiger and the KBB. They're mates of ours. Good fellows. Qian Desheng invited me to a dinner party last year. A dinner party! I didn't go of course. Who the fuck goes to dinner parties in Kowloon." Uncle Ken croaked out a hackle of laughter and a few others joined him.

"Qian Desheng?" Bi-Han latched onto any information he could, "He's Chinese?"

"Immigrant." Uncle Ken gave, "Probably illegal. But from way back when. Desheng's been in Hong Kong longer than you've been alive." He gave another cracked chuckle, "Practically runs the KBB, especially after that accident Timothy Chen had. Desheng plays fair. He knows the balance. He knows Kowloon. Don't go messing that up, kid."

Bi-Han stood,

"I _will_ be messing that up, because Julius Hau has ordered it. Looks like I'll be walking into Kowloon alone and unprepared because you'd all rather sit naked in an oven than discuss actual politics. Thanks for your help I'll be sure to let Hau know."

Bi-Han stormed out the room, opening to door onto blissfully cool air. He slammed it shut behind him. Julius Hau wouldn't give a toss if these people helped him, but no one here needed to know that. In front of the sauna exit was the cold plunge pool. The cold water exploded in a splash as Bi-Han jumped in. He let the icy water bathe his flushed, irritated skin. He breathed out a cool wreath of air and reclined into the frigid embrace of the clear still water. It felt good after the sauna, good after loosing his temper, and good on his raw ink-scratched tattooed back. It was soothing, like a chill mountain breeze in the pause of a climb.

The sauna door opened. He slowly opened sullen eyelids to a slit. Uncle Ken and his inner circle were shuffling out with a kind of guilt in their step. It was good to know throwing around Julius' name had that effect.

"Join me." Bi-Han sad. In a tone that left no room for debate. They all slowly entered the ice cold bath. There was a brief moment where relief from the heat showed on their faces. This slowly gave way to shivers and faint discomfort. "Too cold for you?" Bi-Han turned to the man called Eugene. He remembered how Anton Kwan had made even the most mundane things into a kind of competition in manliness. These people didn't need to know he was a cryomancer who would be sitting in this bath long after they died of hypothermia. They just needed to feel inferior enough to spill all their secrets to him out of masculine compulsion.

Eugene shook his head quickly,

"N-not cold at all," He chattered through shivering teeth, "It's pleasant after the sauna."

"Good," Bi-Han gave a smile that matched the bath temperature. "Then let's continue business. What's the deal between the KBB and the JFP? Why didn't you go get your money off Tiger Chen before?"

"The KBB are too strong in Kowloon. They know their own ground too well. It would have been suicide to go in."

"So you're running scared," Bi-Han supplied.

"N-no one's scared!" Someone else said, though their words were almost shattered by their trembling with the cold. "We're just exercising wisdom!"

"We approached Timothy Chen about it before," Uncle Ken admitted, "But he uh-..."

"He told us to fuck off." Eugene finished.

"And…?" Bi-Han was looking for the end of the story here, "And what? Did you make clear that was unacceptable, tell them there'd be repercussions if this wasn't resolved between you?" He couldn't believe this was how Uncle Ken's wing operated. After the tight ship Grace ran, this was like a slap in the face.

"What's the point? It's a one off. Tiger's the boss's son, it's not like we're making exceptions for everyone. The KBB run a good operation with us. No need to ruin a good thing over something so small."

Bi-Han shook his head and couldn't help murmuring,

"Unbelievable."

Eugene's face darkened and he squared his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak.

"Don't embarrass yourself by speaking." Bi-Han snapped at him. He was surprised to see that the all the men before him were glancing off to one side, apparently demure and subdued by his sharp tone. He felt a customary spark in his spine light up at the feeling of power. "Grace had hoped Tiger would at least be ostracised from the clan for not paying you back, but I suppose I'll just have to go in there and talk to him while he has full KBB backing."

"Grace Yeung knows nothing about Kowloon." One of the men sniggered softly.

"She can run a fucking business, not like you jokes." He was surprised with how heated that came out. He expected backlash for that outburst, but instead there was only another grumbling murmur. Bi-Han hoped someone would stand up to him soon because stamping down these people was becoming intoxicating. One of Uncle Ken's quieter men was going blue with cold. He stood up in the plunge pool, and edged toward the ladder. "Stay where you are." Bi-Han ordered. The man hesitated, glanced at Uncle Ken, and when he saw no movement from him, reluctantly obeyed. "No one's going anywhere until I've got all the information I need to pull this mission off. And you better hope to the gods I don't inform anyone of the fucking state your branch is in."

"We lost people recently," Eugene put in. It was an excuse. Bi-Han hated excuses, even when they didn't concern him. "We lost people at a big drug raid on a floating restaurant. We've been understaff-"

"You lost one fucking person at that drug raid and it was last autumn. Stop making excuses and tell me who else might be interested in this feud you've let stew for a year. Is there anyone who'd be happy to see this Tiger Chen held to account? Has he pissed anyone else off? Can we get another Kowloon gang onside to even up our odds?"

There was thoughtful quiet, broken only by chattering teeth and rattling breath. Bi-Han could see the skin of the men before him breaking out in goosepimples whilst their extremities pales of blood. Getting people to freeze themselves was turning out to be more fun than freezing them himself.

"I mean, Tiger's always getting into small tussles with some of the IGW lads." One man offered, "But you know what kids are like. It's just a bit of posturing, not clan war business."

The IGW. Bi-Han had had Grace's run down on the other gangs in Hong Kong. The Industrial Guild of Workers were the main rivals to the Kowloon Bay Boys. The strings of names he'd had to learn were unending. He tried to pull up everything he could remember on the IGW. Territory wasn't as simple in Kowloon as it was elsewhere. Territory went vertically as well as horizontally.

"So… the IGW… can I expect help from them if I run into trouble with the KBB?"

"Nooo." Uncle Ken's voice had become a kind of quivering hoot. He was older than the rest of the men in the plunge pool and looked to be the least fit. The freezing water was getting to him. "They don't care! They don't care for small JFP business like this. I think Zho Jinhai, ..." He was having trouble forming his words, "I think maybe Julius meant for you to fail in this. He means to show up my branch for leaving this matter unattended, but he means for it to bring you down with us. He does not wish clan war. So when this inevitably fails, it w-will be your death that is the satisfaction between our clans."

Bi-Han raised his eyebrows. Finally someone was talking sense.

"I know." He said simply. "But I have no intention of going down with you. I do not fail. Julius will learn that eventually."

"Y-you c-can't even take firearms into K-kowloon," Uncle Ken chattered through clashing cold teeth, "Police and c-clans that have little influence in the city – they c-can't take weapons in."

"Not a problem." Bi-Han said midly, "Guns are so unreliable. They have the tendency to… _freeze up._ " No one would understand the joke, but Bi-Han was in a good mood, an audience of one was all it needed.

"C-can we go now?" One man stammered.

"Cold?" Bi-Han mocked.

"Really fucking cold."

Bi-Han smiled at the reply, and gave a slight nod of his head. The men scrabbled for the ladders, hissing and rubbing their bodies, some half sobbing from the cold. Bi-Han watched them all idly. It had been a useful afternoon.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Uncle Ken was and always has been the uncle from the Sopranos. This is why you should research the triads before you start writing a story about them instead of just basing their structure on the mafia. (Triads are much less family based. The JFP had to be conservative family values-orientated for me to justify making them family based.)

Thanks for your patience with this chapter. I moved to a different country last week so took a week off to get my life in order. I'm back writing chapters now so should be on schedule again. Thanks for your continued reviews, comments, faves, and kudos! The support helps me a lot!


	34. Caught in the Web of Our Cares

Bi-Han crouched on the balcony opposite the building. It was dark and raining. He could hear raindrops hitting the bonnets of cars far below. Their tinny clatters echoed between the tall apartment blocks. He couldn't see much, but he daren't get any closer. The apartment he was watching had the lights on. A warm yellow glow filtered through curtains that fluttered. An open window that let in a slight breeze. He could have used more intrusive methods to find out what he wanted, but he desperately wanted to do this in the most hands-off way possible. He reigned in all his patience and drew his breath in slow meditative rhythms. He'd been sitting here like this for over an hour, with no real way of knowing if he'd even see what he wanted to tonight. But that was alright, he told himself. He could come back tomorrow night or the day after if need be. He'd sat here yesterday evening and seen nothing. He would do the same today if that was what was required.

A car pulled up below. Bi-Han could dimly make out its silver chassis through the tumbling rain and deep roving shadows. The headlights flicked off as the engine fell quiet. A car door opened and shut and footsteps moved off into the night. After a while, there was movement on his balcony. He tilted his head, flexing his stiff limbs. He heard the clack of high heels, then saw a figure hurry out of the stairwell and shake an umbrella. The figure brushed down her pink coat and fixed her hair, then she knocked on the door of an apartment. Bi-Han strained his eyes, leaning so far forward he knew he was at risk of slipping.

The door opened and unmistakable figure of Liwei appeared haloed by the warm light. Bi-Han could not see the details of his face, but he saw the hunch in his shoulders brighten at the sight of his visitor. The two embraced, through Bi-Han could see Liwei stiffen in pain at the movement. Three months and the man still felt the effects of what had happened.

Bi-Han would often return to this spot. He was not sure why. These things took time to heal, that was no surprise. Did he come here to remind himself of the consequences of his actions? Was this guilt? If it was, it was a strange kind of guilt. If it had happened all over again – if Bi-Han had been standing on the deck of the Jumbo Floating Restaurant asking Liwei to call the police so that he could set up Syun Li-heng, would he have asked Liwei to do it? _Yes. I was protecting the Lin Kuei. I was following protocol._ And yet he made himself sit here and watch Liwei's long difficult recovery. Why was he here? He had asked himself this in the long hours of silence. He supposed he watched to make sure there were those who were close to Liwei and could care for him. He watched to ensure the Jade Fist Pact never returned. He watched because he knew it could never be him knocking on that door to check all was well. Because all wasn't well. And that was his fault.

The apartment door closed. Bi-Han watched it for a few moments longer, then stood and stretched. He took the stairs all the way back down to the street level, then walked home.

Kuai was sitting up at the kitchen table with a map spread before him. He had a compass in his hand and was drawing circles on the map.

"Can't find any plain paper to do your drawing on?" Bi-Han shook off the rain as he came in. Kuai gave him an unimpressed look.

"I'm not _drawing_ , Bi-Han. I'm doing maths."

"Can't you do maths on something that isn't a perfectly useful map of Hong Kong?"

Kuai rolled his eyes again,

" _Bi-Han_ ," He said in exasperation, "I'm doing maths _about_ Hong Kong." Bi-Han opened the fridge. "There's dinner in the pan," Kuai gave, then drew a large circle with his compass. "I'm calculating the possible places a van could have gone. A man told me how long he'd been driving for. And, based on the capacity of his engine, and the average speed of traffic in the city, I'm working out the possible locations its likely he stopped at."

"Sounds like a fun pet project." Bi-Han said, not attempting to disguise his boredom.

"Turns out there are lots of ways to find things out just by doing calculations."

"Is it faster than punching it out of people?"

"It's more accurate."

"Really." Bi-Han at down at the table and began eating straight out the pan. "You'd trust your own ability to draw circles over the word of a man who fears for his life?"

"Even the Grandmaster says you can't trust a desperate man to tell you anything other than what you want to hear, Bi-Han."

Bi-Han leaned forward,

"I can always tell when they're lying to save their necks. I can see it in their eyes, feel it in the change of their heartbeats, and the fluctuation of their temperature. Torture isn't inaccurate, Kuai Liang. There are just bad torturers. It's a fine art." Bi-Han leaned back again, "I'll show you some time. When you're older."

Kuai shivered. Bi-Han frowned. Kuai busied himself quickly with his task.

"Well anyway, I'm not on a mission and I'm not a qualified assassin, so I opted for mathematics." He was uneasy and Bi-Han could see his eyes flicking up anxiously looking for approval, "You don't object, do you?"

Bi-Han shrugged,

"By all means. Keep drawing your circles if you wish."

Kuai continued his project hesitantly. He kept his attention half on his brother, checking to see if his mood might turn. It was sometimes hard to read whether Bi-Han was about to get angry about something. Bi-Han finished eating then washed up the pan. He stretched and rolled his shoulders back as if irked by some itch. Kuai watched his brother pad almost restlessly up and down the kitchen. Eventually he stopped and pulled off his shirt. Kuai's eyes widened when he saw the dark mass of ink on his brother's back. He had not yet seen Bi-Han's tattoo in full. He saw now the curling intricate shapes and angles. Once he got over the initial shock at seeing the thing, he realised he could pick out expressions and symbols that shouted his brother's frustrations and individuality in a riot of ink. The Lin Kuei was in there, but so too was an unruly splurge of anger, and precise geometry that spoke of controlled dedication. There was that tendency towards showmanship, but also the neat efficiency that marked Bi-Han's personal style when completing any mission. For someone who had sniggered at Kuai taking art classes, Bi-Han had certainly spent a long time designing a tattoo that the Grandmaster might have burned off him the moment they got home.

Kuai dropped his eyes back to his task when Bi-Han turned round. Bi-Han sat on the kitchen counter and kicked his shoes off. He pulled out his mobile phone and tapped through its messages. He cut a very different picture from the Bi-Han Kuai had grown up with. Kuai thought back to his borther in his formal Lin Kuei robes rigid and stiff, meditating in frigid silence on his bedroll in the dark cold of their shared stone room. His icy gaze was sharp and best avoided. When he spent too long in the Temple he became like a tethered tiger, ready to snap. Such a different creature from the tattooed half naked man tapping his bare toes on the handle of the cutlery drawer browsing on a telephone.

"You're doing that irritating reminiscing stare, Kuai Liang."

"You're not even looking at me!"

"I don't need to look at you to know you."

"I was going to go out on my own tomorrow, is that ok?"

"Mmhmm." Bi-Han said, "But be careful. There'll be trouble starting with the other Hong Kong gangs soon. Stay within JFP territory and don't attract attention."

Kuai gave a vague nod. His plan was to go to the final stop of the removal van that had left Jia's house. There was a fairly strong possibility that wasn't going to be in JFP territory. But Bi-Han looked distracted enough that he might not need a committal response. Kuai returned his attention to his map.

The length of the journey the van had taken meant it highly unlikely it was still on Hong Kong Island. It was possible to spend that length of time on the island roads by taking the west road around the edge of the island from Aberdeen, but that made almost no sense when one could take the fast road over the hills straight to the north coast. There were a number of ways off the island. One was by ferry, but as far as Kuai could see that seemed a laborious effort to make with vehicle. It would be much quicker either to take one of the three tunnels. One was the Western Harbour Crossing over on the north west side of the island. Another was the Cross Harbour Tunnel leaving the island almost due north, and the last was the East Harbour Crossing. According to Kuai's map, the west and east tunnels were toll roads, and according to Bi-Han that meant you had to pay extra money to use them. Kuai decided he would centre his search first based on the van taking the Cross Harbour Tunnel that was free for the public to use. That put Kuai's coordinates for Jia's whereabouts along a single perimeter arc on the mainland. Kuai narrowed his eyes, scanning the neat pencil line he had drawn. A single housing estate lay on the line – the Ho Man Tin Estate. If Jia was moving to a similar place, that might be a good place to start. Kuai jumped when a shadow fell over him.

He glanced up and saw Bi-Han, brow furrowed over him.

"I-..." Kuai started, aware that he was studying the Hong Kong mainland, way out of the Jade Fist Pact's reach.

Bi-Han's gaze was remote and cold. Kuai swallowed. Bi-Han's finger came down hard on a point on the map. The point was neatly between where the Western Harbour Crossing and Cross Harbour Tunnel came up onto land. Kuai glanced cautiously where he pointed. The area was a large black blob, marked in white letters only with the words 'Kowloon Walled City'.

"So dense it's not even mapped." Bi-Han said quietly. Then he fell silent.

Kuai peered nervously up at him. He looked distant. Kuai looked back at the map and tried to see what his brother saw, think with the worries that he worried with. After a bit, he said gently,

"Will you be ok going into Kowloon?"

Bi-Han's eyes were fixed on the black mark blighting the map.

"We shall see." He straightened and walked off.

The next morning Kuai was sitting on a bus, his nose pressed up to his Hong Kong map as he spread it out against the bus window. He'd gotten used to taking the school bus on his own, but this bus was going a lot further. He kept checking his map to distract himself. Every time anxious niggling worries begun to flutter in his chest, he imagined Jia. He imagined when the police had come to her door to tell her her mother was dead. He imagined Jia's family slowly packing up their things. Maybe they'd been told it was no longer safe for them in Shek Pai Wan. Maybe they'd been waiting until Syun's operation came to an end and had always planned to move away at the end. Maybe all of them couldn't stand being in that house without Syun coming in, shrugging off her purple anorak and eating cold rice whilst perched on the edge of an armchair. Maybe without Syun's income, Jia's family couldn't afford to stay.

Kuai clutched his map to him and drew his knees up to his chest as the bus sunk into the Cross Harbour Tunnel. The dark rose up around him as lights flickered on, lighting up the walkway and ceilings in the bus. He found himself wondering what would happen to him if Bi-Han never returned from Kowloon. Would they send someone like Sektor out to fetch him and take him back to the Temple? How could he keep living at the Temple, keep trying to master his lessons, keep learning cryomancy, without Bi-Han? Would he have to sleep in his room alone? And who would step in and take the blame when he made mistakes or showed too many emotions? Kuai bit his lip and blinked his eyes quickly. _Bi-Han can do anything. He will never fall and never fail. He'll always come back. He'll always come back for me._ A voice far off in the recesses of his skull knew he could not cling to those ideas forever, but just then and just now, they were the strength he needed to take a deep breath.

Ho Man Tin Estate was very different from Shek Pai Wan. The blocks rose like enormous isolated spears thrust into the sky. They were painted bright pastel colours like the ice creams sold on the high street. Kuai supposed this was to make them more appealing, but to him it seemed to make them more frightening. The severe brutal architecture painted in pink, pale blue, and cream strips looked down as ominous concrete giants dressed up in inoffensive frocks. Kuai stepped uneasily in and out their shadows tilted by the midday sun. Only now did he wonder how he would find Jia in an estate that held several thousand to each of its nine blocks.

He spent the early afternoon meandering the estate. Eventually he bought himself an ice cream, because the tower blocks reminded him of them. He sat licking it on a concrete step. He would have to go back soon by bus if wanted to be home by dark. It took a long time to get back to the other side of Hong Kong Island, not counting waiting for buses and the traffic in the early evening. He reached into his pocket and counted the change. He'd counted out that he had enough to get back after buying his ice cream, plus a little extra. He separated out the cents in his palm. There might even be something he could buy with his spare change. He finished his ice cream, hopped up, and ran along to the sweet shop nestled in the shopping arcade at the estate entrance. He was double checking his coins again as he walked down an aisle when heard a familiar voice. He froze and ducked behind a plastic bucket filled with long rainbow sherbet legs.

"A dollar each? What can you buy with that about half a shoelace is what!"

"Jia, you just watch your mouth, Ru said one dollar so you get one dollar."

"If I take yours I get two."

"Don't you dare-!"

Kuai slipped around the edge of the aisle as patter of racing feet drew near. He peered round and caught sight of Jia and one of her sisters tearing through the shop. He slipped into the back aisle and out into the mall. He ran out into the street and crouched down in the shadow the steps at the corner. Jia and her sister came out five minutes later, each with hands stuffed full of sweets. They were laughing. Kuai watched. Jia's face was bright with no dark shadows under her eyes.

He followed them at a discreet distance. They had lilts in their steps and a honey in their shouts. They hop-scotched along the pavement, using the cracks to mark squares. He watched as they entered the bottom of one of the tower blocks, and listened as their voices bounced off the stairwell. He watched from below, readying his squint to try and catch which level they were coming out at. To his surprise, they re-emerged on the second floor. He wasn't sure why he was surprised. There was no rule that said Jia only had to live on the sixteenth floor of buildings.

He watched them open the third door along and chat animatedly, showing off their armfuls of goods. Jia's hair had grown a lot. It wasn't as chopped off and short as it had been. She looked happier than Kuai had ever seen her before. He was glad. It was sad not having her at school, but at least she was comfortable with where she'd moved on to. He sighed and permitted himself a slight smile. If she was happy then he could learn to accept this change as a good one. He turned to leave, but then stopped.

The door had opened wider. In the door way, admiring sweets from Jia's collection, was a woman. She was leaning heavily on a pair of crutches but stretched a hand with difficulty out into the red sunlight and picked up a sweet in shiny wrapping that glinted and winked. It was Syun Li-heng. Kuai stared. Syun's head, on Syun's body, wearing admittedly different clothes, but there was no mistaking Jia's mother up there on the balcony. Kuai backed quickly into the shadows, breathing fast. He was sure he hadn't been seen, but if he knew one thing, it was that one could never be certain with Syun Li-heng. Suddenly his pet project didn't seem like it belonged to him any more. The tall buildings belonged to territories that belonged to factions. He was in Bi-Han's world again with political rules and connivances around every corner. Even his innocent trip to buy an ice cream could have implications if he was sighted and recognised here.

As he ran to the bus stop he tried to think what this might mean. He didn't want to tell Bi-Han, because Bi-Han had wanted Syun dead. But hadn't she had to die to keep Lin Kuei secrets? And hadn't Bi-Han said the police were now on his side? What did that mean if Syun was alive and well and Bi-Han didn't know about it? Someone had to be not telling the truth to him, and that did not bode well for his mission. _The police can't touch him in Kowloon,_ _he'll be alright_ , he thought as he sat on the bus home. Was that really how he would justify not telling his brother? Keep him in the dark in the event that police might not be able to hurt him in his immediate next mission? Was that really what he'd do after all his worries about Bi-Han not making it back alive? He pressed his face to the window, feeling the cold glass against his face. The cityscape passed miserably in a blur of grey and neon. He closed his eyes as the road dipped into the tunnel. Jia's face if she lost her mother for real though. Bi-Han never left loose ends. If he found out Syun Li-heng was alive he would come for her. Jia without a frown, Jia with a new life, Jia showing things to her mother and smiling, all that would be gone. In a heartbeat Bi-Han would take away everything Jia had just gained. Kuai was beginning to wish he had never looked for Jia.

When the bus drove out of the tunnel it was growing dark. Kuai could see the waterfront lighting up in bright colours. He fidgeted in his seat on the last leg home. He'd only eaten an ice cream during the day so he was hungry and his chest was heavy with guilt and indecision.

 _How could Syun Li-heng be alive? Even the newspapers said she was dead. Had the police done it as a trick?_ Kuai twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Someone behind him tutted, but he ignored them. He wanted to go home and lie in his bed. And also eat a big hot dinner. But in bed, whilst not moving. Or thinking.

It was after five o'clock when he slipped in through the front door. He tried to shut it quietly behind him.

"You're back late."

Kuai whirled round and smiled sheepishly. Bi-Han had a cold coffee he was sipping from in one hand while he twirled a full length ice kori blade in the other. Kuai stepped back out of the way of the spinning blade.

"Practising for Kowloon?" Kuai asked, dodging the late accusation.

"Sure am." Bi-Han spun the blade masterfully, slicing the air with whisper of speed. Kuai watched the arc of its movement, eyes caught for a moment by the serene glitter of hardened ice flashing and twisting. Bi-Han threw the blade in the air then caught it and crushed it into shards that splintered over the floor. "How was your day?"

"Okay. But I forgot to eat. Can you make me dinner?"

"I'm not a Temple servant, Kuai Liang."

"But you are my big brother, pleeease. I'm so hungry I could eat a whole panda."

"Go eat one then."

But Kuai could see his brother pulling onions out the cupboard. He settled himself at the kitchen table to watch the impressive display of Bi-Han cutting each vegetable with a different blade made of ice. His eyes were all caught up in awe. He liked the peaceful dynamic of just him and Bi-Han at home together. He thought of Jia enjoying the peace of her home with her mother. Kuai let out a slow breath and slumped his head onto his hands. He could afford one day to think about what to tell his brother about Syun Li-heng.

* * *

 **Author Note:** sometimes you just want to get big brother to cook you a meal whilst weighing up if you should tell him his last victim is still alive. Relatable Kuai.

Also- to the guest who was unsure about Sektor's chapter: It was a chapter I ummed and ahhed about including for precisely the reasons you suggest. In the end I decided to include it for two reasons (1) it neatly rounds up a storyline that will otherwise happen off camera, (2) this is fanfiction and not an original novel. I certainly wouldn't have put a switch in POV chapter like this into an original novel, but I think ultimately the point of fanfiction is to anchor the story in the characters people love whilst giving hints about how it slots into the wider universe. For a story like Black Ice that's a long way off the beaten track in terms of MK plotlines, Sektor's chapter foreshadows the cyber initiative in a way that keeps fanfic readers feeling like this is still the MK universe they know and love.

Please keep your comments and support coming, they help motivate me a lot!


	35. Lone Wolf

Bi-Han looked in the mirror. He was wearing one of the shirts Nat had bought him. It was black with red inner lapels and twisting gold dragons on the collar. Understated with a level of showy that told enough to keep the average street thug off his back. His trousers were smart but loose, his shoes polished, but flat and comfortable. He would be going in with nothing but the simple clothes on his back. He flexed his muscles and felt tattooed skin on back his move over his shoulder blades. It was healed to the point of being less irritating. That meant it was time to leave. He turned his palms upwards, summoning twin ice blades into his palms. He'd taken the last few days to train continuously. If it came down to a fight in Kowloon, his odds were not going to be good, but the training kept his mind keen and his nerves down. He caught sight of a small worried face in the mirror behind him. He let his blades melt, then turned and ruffled Kuai's hair.

"It'll be fine."

Kuai nodded but looked unconvinced. The physical contact usually comforted him. Bi-Han wondered if it was a portent that it wasn't enough this time. Kuai moved about the room after him like a reluctant shadow, wanting to stay close but obviously fearing Bi-Han's temper. Bi-Han talked to clear the anxiety he knew they both felt.

"You know what you're doing while I'm away?"

"Keep my head down. Keep the same schedule. If I'm worried about anything go to-" Kuai pulled a folded piece of paper out his pocket. "This place. Where Grace Yeung works."

"And when you're there...?"

"I can trust any of the sex workers-"

"Escorts." Bi-Han corrected.

"Escorts." Kuai repeated, "And Grace. But not anyone else from the JFP. And certainly not someone called Anton. Bi-Han, can I not even trust Uncle Nat? He gave me my first burger."

"No you cannot!" Bi-Han glowered at him, as if appalled that Kuai's loyalty could be bought so cheaply.

"Oh," Kuai looked forlorn, "I liked some of his friends too. They were nice to me. Grace always seems much more scary and she once pointed a gun in my face."

"Just do as your told, Kuai Liang. And try to stop being so naïve. Or you'll end up in another police cell and this time I won't be able to get you out because I'll be stuck in Kowloon."

"I won't end up in a police station again," Kuai muttered. Then he fell silent because that reminded him of Syun Li-heng, who he still hadn't told Bi-Han about. He had meant to tell him over breakfast, but somehow breakfast had finished and he hadn't. Now Bi-Han had his shoes on and was checking his phone.

"Dammit." Bi-Han said softly. The device was vibrating in his hand. He pressed a button and held the phone to his ear, "What?! I told you not to call this number unless-… Yes, I can hear you. Do you realise how unsafe these phones are- Yes. Yes, I'm not saying- I'm not _claiming to know more about technology than you._ "

Kuai's heart sunk. That sounded like Sektor.

"Alright!" Bi-Han was impatient. "I'm trying to finish getting ready here, I've got a car coming in five minutes. Look – cool it for a second while I finish up, then I'll talk." Without waiting for a reply, he tossed the phone to Kuai. "Hold that for me – keep him on the line – if he hangs up it'll be to get the Grandmaster on my case and I can't handle that now."

Kuai gawped at him and then at the phone in his hand.

"Well, talk to him, then!" Bi-Han stalked off into the bedroom leaving Kuai alone in the kitchen.

"H-hello?"

"Kuai Liang, get your brother back on the phone this _instant_."

Kuai chewed his bottom lip, fingers curling anxiously around the phone. It was Sektor, and he did not sound pleased. Just hearing his voice again took Kuai back to the halls of the Lin Kuei Temple, where all freedoms were suffocated and rules were to be toed to perfection and hardships were met unswerving, unblinking and without emotion.

"H-hi Sektor. Bi-Han is busy right now, he t-"

" _Do as your told._ "

Kuai shivered and swallowed. He could feel old familiar worries about insubordination bubbling in his chest.

"I'm sorry, Sektor," He said in a small voice, "I don't know how to… He doesn't listen to me. Please don't be angry..."

"Do you know he's planning to go into the walled city alone? With no external communication to the Lin Kuei or his Triad contacts?!"

"Yes..." Kuai admitted miserably.

"Then you must know this is arrogant even for him. There are other ways to get close to his targets than to prove himself to some deranged gangsters by going on a suicide mission!"

Kuai shuffled to the bedroom door. Clothes were flying out of one of the flight bags they had brought over with them as Bi-Han went through it. Kuai flitted in the doorway, mouthing angrily at Bi-Han to hurry up. Bi-Han waved him down.

"Please don't be angry at me, Sektor. What can I do? He never listens, he just does what he does!"

There was a lapse in the tirade and a slow heaving sigh collapsed through the speaker.

"Sektor?" Kuai was timid, "Are you still there? Please don't tell the Grandmaster."

"I'm here." Sektor sounded different, almost tired. "Bi-Han is impossible. He gets his mind focussed on a mission and that's it. He's a one man team and no amount of insisting otherwise can change his mind. It's not a coincidence he was reporting directly to the Grandmaster before he lost those privileges. He won't listen to anyone else."

Kuai opened his mouth, then shut it again. Sektor never spoke to him. Not like this anyway. In fact, this sounded more like an irate monologue than a conversation. He tried to think of something to say, then winced at all of his own proposals. There was a silence growing cold between them, and he swallowed again as he thought of Bi-Han telling him to keep Sektor on the line.

"So… um... is Tomas doing okay?"

"This isn't a catch-up call, Kuai Liang!" Sektor snapped, sounding much more like the Sektor Kuai was used to.

"Ah yes, of course! Sorry… But… is he okay? Can you just tell me? He's not really sad all the time, is he?"

"The Lin Kuei have no emotion."

"But we do have a little bit. Like how Bi-Han is grumpy, and you're mad at him right now, and I'm a bit worried about how you might be mad at me soon too. So... Tomas… is he… ?"

"He's fine." Sektor snapped, mostly out of exasperation, "I don't know. Lonely probably. A dejected puppy without his favourite cryomancers to follow around. But improving martially now that he has no one to share his idiotic jokes with."

Kuai's heart fell. He thought back to the bedraggled frightened child who had first come to the Lin Kuei. He thought about how long it had taken to help Tomas feel like he was part of a new family. At least it was good to hear about him. Thinking about Tomas made Kuai hurt inside. He very much wished to see his friend again.

"Thank-you." He said quietly.

"Talking of idiots, is your brother finish painting his nails or whatever it is he thinks is worthy of keeping the Grandmaster's son waiting?"

Kuai ran into the room holding the receiver firmly out to Bi-Han. Bi-Han mouthed angrily at him that he was busy. Kuai put the phone back to his ear,

"Yes, Sektor, he's just here." He thrust it out again at Bi-Han. Bi-Han glared at him and snatched up the phone.

"Sektor." Bi-Han put on his placating voice for calming superiors.

Kuai crept back out to the kitchen, where he couldn't hear the tinny sound of Sektor raging at his brother.

Bi-Han came through some minutes later. He laid the mercifully silent mobile phone on the table. A lingering irritation was on his face, but Kuai could see from the stubbornness in his brow that Sektor had been unsuccessful at dissuading him.

"He's only looking out for you, Bi-Han. He thinks there are better ways to do this mission…"

"Then he should look back at our missions and remind himself which of the two of us has perfect record."

"Bi-Han, I just mean – don't get angry at him for caring."

" _Caring?_ " Bi-Han sneered. Kuai felt himself deflate. "Do not mistake the Lin Kuei's peripheral concern over how well their tools are functioning for _care_ , Kuai Liang."

Kuai sighed and lowered his eyes, but then thought of the plant woman upstairs and her stubborn advice. He looked up sharply at Bi-Han.

"That's not fair. You grew up with Sektor. It matters to him what happens to you. That's not any less real just because he wants the mission to be a success for the Lin Kuei."

Bi-Han said nothing in response to that.

Kuai couldn't tell if that was because he was angry or because he heard the truth in it. Thinking about truths made Kuai think about the truth he was hiding. The wary but gentle smile of a woman leaning on crutches to admire the confectionery her children had brought. The budding warmth of a full family, alive and well on the second floor of an apartment block in Ho Man Tin Estate. _Syun Li-heng is alive._

Bi-Han checked his reflection one more time and nodded. He opened the front door.

"Wait, Bi-Han-!" Kuai ran to him. It had to be now. He had to tell him now.

Bi-Han turned. He looked down at Kuai. Then he set surprisingly gentle hands on Kuai's shoulders. He gave him a serious look and lifted Kuai's chin with a forefinger. The care in that gesture stunned Kuai into silence.

"Stay safe, okay?" He kissed Kuai's forehead, then turned and walked out the door. The door swung shut after him, leaving Kuai alone in the house.

Bi-Han looked up at the sky above. Stretched white clouds were ploughed into a warm blue sky. In Kowloon he would see no sky.

A discreet black car pulled up and mounted the curb. The door opened and Bi-Han got in. Grace peered at him from over green lenses.

"All ready?"

Bi-Han nodded. Anton was driving, but he was mercifully silent.

The car journey seemed short. All too quickly they were pulling up into a back road. The engine purred to a stop. Grace wound down a mirror black window slightly to indicate directions.

"When you get out it's first left then straight on, takes you to one of the main entrances. You're expected."

Bi-Han nodded again. Grace seemed to sense his hesitancy.

"Remember, my father's people want you to fail. They want you to stir up trouble so that they can hang you out to dry. Don't give them the satisfaction. Think before you act and keep violence to a last resort. Work out who to manipulate and intimidate, find out how people think and what they want. It's easy to control people who are ruled by their desires." She gave him a level look, a look for equals. She'd never given him a look like that before. It fuelled his courage. He nodded more confidently. Her lips parted slightly and twitch of indecision flickered on her brow.

"What?" He asked pre-emptively.

A smooth mask slid over her features again,

"One more matter it may serve you to know of." There was an edge in her voice. Bi-Han didn't like the sound of it. "The police have made us aware of a situation they have failed to control. A small division within the police force have gone to ground, believing their headquarters to be corrupt – _controlled by the Triad._ " She spoke with derision, but there was concern there too. "My police tell me that we're looking at a renegade cell, maybe three or four at most. They're as good as cut off from anyone who cares for their paragon crusade, but I will deal with this. It can't distract you from your mission. But you should know, there's a high likelihood that this cell takes Syun Li-heng's martyrdom as it's standard. You and I may well be their prime concern."

"Can you get your father's security involved?"

"And entrust my wellbeing to those I intend to usurp in a matter of days? Hardly a wise move, Zho. No, this renegade police cell may be working outside the law, but they are small, with few resources. They will be stretched thin and struggling to get the intelligence they need to do anything meaningful to hurt us. It helps that I went ahead and burned the rest of Syun's files after requesting them from the police records."

This was not the quiet send off Bi-Han had hoped for. If there was anyone in the Jade Fist Pact he trusted to have his back though, it was Grace Yeung. He steeled himself and let this new information settle at the back of his mind, present but not distracting him. He nodded,

"If there's nothing more..."

"Nothing. Go do what you're good at."

Bi-Han got out the car. The door shut behind him. The car pulled away and turned the corner. And he was alone.

A corrugated steel door capped with rusting barbed wire shuddered open before him. His admission into the most densely populated six-and-a-half acres in the world was absent of all decorum. The daylight was immediately filtered through a hundred storeys of precariously tilting apartments, with linen washing lines, ladders, steel roofing and nets hung between them. The roads were unswept gutters paved as they had been decades before, when a government could still control this rogue piece of land. Bi-Han had been unsure how it would feel to step into this place. Cities were not his natural abode. But one foot in Kowloon felt good. It felt anarchic. Something deep inside him stirred with new untested freedoms. Inside these walls there were no masters. At least not for him, Sub-Zero. No civilian laws. Only the law of the street. And Triad laws were a malleable thing.

He tilted his head in greeting to the shaved headed enforcer escorting him through the gates. The man set a path up the narrow dark street and Bi-Han followed at a leisurely pace. The hubbub of a thousand lives reverberated above his head in a muted clatter and murmur of constant noise. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile. This was his kind of city.

* * *

 **Author Note:** A short chapter before things start to go down. Rolling into the final arena of this story. I always enjoy hearing from readers - makes chapters all the more fun to share, so keep any thoughts and comments coming :)


	36. New World With Old Rules

**_Warning: Chapter includes torture and suffocation_  
**

* * *

He was shown into a concrete room with peeling wallpaper rolling off the walls. A dozen unwashed tables were laid out classroom-like in the shell of an old cafe. An array of underfed young men in peak physical condition sat slumped on or around the tables. They wore their tattoos the way the JFP wore fine suits. Bi-Han eyed them casually as he passed, noting the place of every knife in each belt and sock, the two firearms stuffed into the back of trousers, and the brass knuckledusters on the hand of one man. At the end of the room, the enforcer knocked a rhythm that Bi-Han instinctively memorised. He could feel the new ink on his back itching with anticipation.

He was shown up a wilting wooden staircase to a dark room still in good repair. Heavy musty curtains blocked out what little daylight there was, instead leaving the lighting up to two weak, underpowered bulbs flickering from low tables in the centre of the room.

There was a grating metallic creak from the shadows, and the hair on the back of Bi-Han's neck stood up. His eyes accustomed to the dark. It was a wheelchair. In its thin embrace was a fading man in his late fifties with a blanket over his legs. He was surrounded by much more competent looking men and one woman in a smart cheongsam. His attendants had a patience to them, like the patience of a snow leopard watching a lame hair. The centre of their calm radiated from a man standing quietly off to one side near a drinks cabinet. He had black steely hair, greying at the edges, and deep lines in his face. His eyes were dark and looked straight at Bi-Han in a narrow calculated gaze. Despite the understated dress, Bi-Han could see just from the way this man held himself, that he was the real power in this room. _Qian Desheng_. He made a mental note. The second-in-command of the KBB.

"Welcome, brother." The man in the wheelchair hailed him.

Bi-Han dragged his attention reluctantly from Desheng to the speaker. Timothy Chen had taken a police bullet to the spine some seven years before that had left him paralysed from the waist down.

"Brother?" Bi-Han said mildly. There was a stir from Timothy's attendants. Bi-Han's manner did not at all reflect the status afforded to their boss.

Timothy gave a smile full of decorum and absent of all warmth.

"All the Triad are brothers. And no place more than in the walls of Kowloon."

"But not all brothers are equal. The Jade Fist Pact may not even carry weapons into this place." Let them think that disturbed him. It would give him the edge if it came to violence.

Timothy gave a more genuine smile this time, and the shoulders of his attendants relaxed a little,

"Indeed. But we always have time to hear out the concerns of the JFP. Whilst you are a guest here you are under our protection. So do not worry yourself with concerns like these."

 _Whilst you are a guest here._ Very precise wording, Bi-Han noted. This was a privilege that would not be extended to those who did not comply to every whim of the KBB.

"Now," Timothy waved a hand and, reluctantly, the smartly dressed woman rolled the wheelchair forward a little, "Julius Hau sent you here. You're not one of his regulars, but I consider Julius a man of high repute. What business have you with us?"

Formalities always made Bi-Han nervous. They were never his chosen mode of operation. Someone like Sektor could smooth talk and emotionally bully his way into a victim's house before he let off a cavalcade of rockets and literally brought the roof down. Bi-Han was more and in-out sort of person. He did best when he was unseen and unheard.

"It concerns your son. He still owes Yeung Kenneth for two kilos of cocaine that he chose to use recreationally rather than selling on for the profits due both parties. It has come to our attention that this debt has not been settled. We ask the KBB's aid in seeing due reparations made." Word-for-word as Grace had told him.

The man in the wheelchair cocked an eyebrow.

"All this trouble over two kilos of crack?"

Bi-Han shifted his weight. Julian had truly chosen a task to make him feel foolish. _And suicidal. Don't let the stakes slip from view._ He took a breath.

"It's a small trifle, but one that I hope can be resolved."

Timothy Chen sat back in his chair with a slightly disbelieving huff of amusement,

"Surely you haven't been sent by Julius to deal with something as petty as this? When even was this incident?"

Bi-Han kept his breathing even, he could feel tension rippling in the room, rife with insult and dangerous humour.

"A year ago."

Someone next to Qian Desheng smothered a guff of laughter. Timothy Chen sent them dark glare then looked back at Bi-Han.

"What is this? Some kind of power play? Is Julius out of his mind? If these two kilos meant so much you, why didn't you come sooner?" He spoke sideways to Desheng, "This must be some kind of joke." When he looked back in Bi-Han's direction all his interest was gone. He waved dismissively, "You may speak with my son and if he consents to your request so be it, but this matter is hardly worth the attention of the KBB. Show this boy out." He said with contempt.

Bi-Han's shoulders sunk with dismay. His eyes caught Qian Desheng's as the man turned to follow his boss. His gaze alone was devoid of derision. Instead it was sharp, thoughtful, calculating.

Bi-Han was lead back through the concrete cafe and out into the street. He hated feeling powerless. His scowl was deep as he followed the lead of the same enforcer who'd shown him in the gate.

"Tiger won't pay anything." The now familiar enforcer said to him.

"We shall see." Bi-Han replied. The non-violent solutions to this task were fading from view much quicker than he'd anticipated.

They were back in the dark labyrinth of sunken orange doorways and narrow blue alleyways. Faces peered from the shadows then retreated on catching sight of their attire. There were people sleeping, eating, sweeping, going about their livelihoods in a surprisingly normal fashion, devoid of the rule of law and authority. Children dangled feet from balconies above him and peered down at him as they chewed food, or played games with their neighbours. Bi-Han craned his head back. The buildings were so tall and close together, that children had invented new vertical games to play with those above and below them. They hung from rusting railings and climbed walls with twisted fishing lines made into ropes. To Bi-Han's left and right, shadowy alleys bent away in a writhing maze of black brick and crumbling plaster. In the occasional darkness, flickers of neon would light sunken eyes with skeletal begging hands trailed towards him, asking for their next fix. The enforcer batted them away and they slunk back into their shadows. They passed an unlicensed dental practice, and then a clinic, and further on a butchers selling the gods only knew what meat.

"People… just continue on living here." Bi-Han said aloud.

"What did you expect? That we live like animals in Kowloon? Things are a little different here, but not so much." The enforcer talked cheerfully as he stamped through puddles of stale rainwater, every now and again nudging anonymous refuse to the side of the street with the toe of his boot. "There's a _yamen_ in the centre of our city. My grandmother teaches calligraphy lessons there. And locals drink tea in its shade each day, and come and go as they please. No closing times, no opening times. You can sit on any roof in Kowloon and watch the sun rise or set. Share a drink with a neighbour and walk across rooftops as though they were highways. Can't do that on Hong Kong Island."

Bi-Han quieted. In the end, he supposed the arrangement locals had here wasn't so different from that which the Lin Kuei shared with the villages nearby in the mountains. There was an uneven power relationship, but on the whole it was live and let live. Each had uses for the other.

"It must be easy running business here without the police around." He'd spent the last three months engaged in tit-for-tat warfare with the Hong Kong Police Force, and was genuinely interested to understand Kowloon in all its oddities.

"Easy in some ways but not in others." The enforcer shrugged, "The other clans here vie fiercely for territory. Every day there are disputes, who sold to who and where. If a resident of one area goes to a different clan's territory to buy, whose sale is that? The wars here are big and only end after many casualties. Every now and again we also get police raids. You probably heard the police don't come in here. They do. But only in squadrons. We get maybe fifteeen-or-twenty at a time, all armed. They come in shoot us up make a few arrests and back out behind a wall of riot shields. It's not all fun and games in Kowloon."

Bi-Han passed the daily life of Kowloon with renewed quietude and observation. Simple transactions and necessities emerged through the tangled anarchy, providing means in strange innovative ways that he never could have predicted. An old man sat smoking on a bench outside his house, but on closer inspection, his bench was an early twentieth century canon, half sunken into the grime of the unpaved alley. Buckets hung from windows, stepped to unalign themselves with buckets on the floor above, catching fresh rainwater for the occupants of the houses. Walkways between high floors blocked out patches of sun but served as a network that eliminated the need for treading the filth and dark of the streets below. Thick clusters of cables climbed up the outside of houses like wild vines while TV antennae clawed out the brickwork and thrust out from the walls as an artificial thicket. Bridges and hanging staircases arched over Bi-Han's head, all with a very rough and ready look to them. He flinched as he walked beneath them, half expecting them to cave on his head. The enforcer guiding him only laughed.

Tiger Chen had converted the concrete remains of a British Army barracks into a lowlight dive bar. Severe brutalist architecture gave way to a grimy but velveteen interior. Like most things in Kowloon, the dive bar looked like it had never seen any sunlight, and smelled like it was slowly disintegrating from the inside out. The people within sported the same thin but wily strength to them as the KBB men Bi-Han had seen earlier. They had the rangy look of wildcats all eager for their next meal. A number of young women hung about with them, but from the way they dressed and laughed and lounged, Bi-Han could tell they were not a part of the Triad structure the way women were in Grace's cell. His eyes flicked over the room, trying to single out Tiger. His target became painfully apparent when a young man with his namesake draped over his shoulders appeared behind the bar. Tiger Chen vaulted over the counter with three beer bottles in each hand, thick tiger pelt flapping on his shoulders. He set the bottles down, threw back his head, gave a loud sniff, and dabbed his nose free of a recreational trail of white dust.

"What's up?"

The room turned vaguely to look at Bi-Han. The sound of laughter and voices dulled to a thick murmur, framed by a fast techno beat coming from a beaten up record player and huge set of amps in the corner.

Bi-Han felt his lips dry again. He had words pre-memorised for this too. But somehow the picture had never looked like this. Tiger had thick eyebrows and a close shaved head. He raised his eyebrows now, urging Bi-Han to speak.

"Uh." Bi-Han gave, "You owe the JFP a fuck ton of money. I'm here to collect."

Not what had been rehearsed.

Heads turned to look at him. Faces tilted and caught a swarm of strange colours reflecting off a tarnished discoball rotating slowly on the ceiling. Tiger Chen stepped forward in a wreath of cigarette smoke. Dark striped fur shimmered fiery orange about his neck.

"JFP? Here?" A slow smile was on his face. Youngsters leaned down from their chairs and tables to leer at Bi-Han. Out-dated revolvers and even an old army rifle were slung about their persons. "Here on your own, Mr Collector? No friends? No firearms?" There were a lot of people in the room. Bi-Han had all their attention now. He could feel excitement welling in his stomach. _Be smart. Keep control of the situation. Don't let it come to an open fight. No matter how much you want it._ He could practically hear Grace and Sektor in his head. He sighed internally.

"That's right." He said calmly. He let his fearlessness cast its own doubt in their minds. "I was sent by Julius Hau. May I discuss this in private with you, Mr Chen?"

Julius's name caused a ruffle of plumage.

"What does _he_ want? I owe the JFP nothing." There was a sullen petulance to Tiger's tone, as if Bi-Han had just brought the parents into the room.

"Let's find somewhere quieter to talk. I'll explain."

Tiger was subdued enough that he complied. He and a half dozen others collected up drinks and smokes and deposited themselves into a slightly quieter lounge. They left the door to the main bar ajar, Bi-Han noted. He kept the door to his right and within the corner of his eye.

"I don't get it," Tiger said once they were out of the bulk of the noise. "What Uncle Jules' deal? Why would he send someone for me? I chatted to him only two weeks ago and he never mentioned anything. How do I even know you're JFP?"

Bi-Han blinked. He had enough information on this young man to fill a binder worthy of Syun Li-heng, and yet somehow he had missed that Tiger had a personal connection to Julius Hau.

"What's your relationship with Mr Hau?" Bi-Han said guardedly.

"What's _yours_?!" Tiger returned childishly.

"I was sent here on his orders. To follow up the matter of you owing Kenneth for two kilos of-"

"That was ages ago! And they shot up one of my shop fronts! So its like reparations. Anyway Uncle Jules doesn't care about that stuff. Me and him are tight."

Bi-Han narrowed his eyes. He tried to think like Grace Yeung and not Sub-Zero.

" _Julius doesn't care about business?_ " He mimicked. "Is that what you think?"

"I didn't say that." Tiger said quickly.

"What did you say then? Did it occur to you that on finding out your outstanding debt, you might be less _tight_ with Julian?"

There was quiet in the small room. Tiger's friends made themselves larger on the chairs they occupied. A seven-to-one fight was still odds Sektor would scream at him for committing to.

"Who let you in here?" Tiger snapped, "Have you spoken to my father?"

"He says this is a business you must clear up yourself."

"Fuck him." Tiger said savagely. After a moment he said, "What about Desheng? Did he say anything?"

Bi-Han shook his head.

Tiger stood, shedding his fur coat as he did. It hit the floor in a heavy pile.

"Nothing?" He paced back and forth in the small space, looking thoughtful.

Then he moved. There was a blur and before Bi-Han could flinch, there was a thin knife at his throat. Bi-Han held his composure, eyes wide at the speed and suddenness of the blade.

Tiger suddenly no longer looked like a spoilt child. His shrugged off coat revealed seasoned thick muscled arms with KBB tattoos curling down the biceps. His eyes were sharp and his eyelids were dyed black, creating a skull-like mask when he blinked.

"If you were worth anything, Qian Desheng would have said something. He always steps in to protect me. If he said nothing, it means _you_ are nothing. And I've got leave to finish you the traditional way."

The knife wasn't in his neck, Bi-Han reasoned, trying to calm the cryomancy roaring in his veins, that meant there might be more to this conversation.

"Are you sure?" Bi-Han said mildly. Tiger had already used up the element of surprise. Even at this distance, the knife might cut Bi-Han's throat, but he'd had the time to construct a thick layer of ice below the skin that would protect his artery. Gangsters were showmen first and assassins only after. Never show a blade, was a rule Bi-Han lived by. By the time it was visible, the victim should be dead. "Your father called me a guest of the KBB. I would hate for another of your rash mistakes to lead us into a clan war."

Something flickered on Tiger's face,

"The cocaine wasn't a mistake… Julius… Julius said I could keep it. He said it was a test for Kenneth. He said the boss, your boss, I mean, was testing Kenneth, to see if he was strong enough to uphold JFP honour and come for what was his…"

 _What the fuck have I got myself into_ , Bi-Han thought. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He needed to keep things simple, all this was peripheral to what mattered.

"Well, I've been asked to come settle the debt. So what'll it be. Will you pay what you owe?"

Tiger lowered his knife slowly. A casual smile grew on his face.

"How about no?" He laughed, looking back at his friends. He cocked an eyebrow as he turned back to Bi-Han. "Go home. Kenneth can come here in person and beg for his money if he wants it so badly. That is if that doddering old man can even walk this far." Tiger laughed again. The laugh magnified as his friends echoed him. They clinked beers and drunk to Tiger's words.

Bi-Han smiled and the low light caught his teeth and made them flash.

"Wrong answer." He said softly and smashed the only bulb in the room.

The door was kicked shut and everything went to total blackness. Tiger turned around in the dark, pulling his knife into a reverse grip. There was commotion and scuffling all about him. He spun at the sound of a crashing chair. There was a smash of a bottle hitting the ground. Tiger found the floor beneath his feet sticky with beer. He kept turning, unable to see in the dark.

"Hey!" He shouted. There was silence. He was breathing hard. He tried to listen for where his friends were. His own breathing was the only sound he could hear. He swallowed down a flicker of doubt that sprung into his throat. As his eyes accustomed he breathed a sigh of relief, he could see his friends all around him, arms raised to defend him. His confidence flowed back strong and proud. A black smirk took his face and he peered into the shadows, looking for his assailant. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His skin crawled and instinctive warning signs jumped through his chest. Something was wrong. Something felt very unnatural. He realised his friends had not moved. They were still. Perfectly still. He reached out a hand to touch – deathly cold. He jumped away, scrabbling to get away from the impossible sight. The shadowy shapes of his friends stood as unmoved, silent, statuesque husks in the ink dark. A low cry of disbelief crept from him as he backed away.

"Don't worry." There was a soft, almost calming voice in his ear. "They will wake again. They are just resting for now. I could kill them, but death is such a messy business. Of course… some business is _more_ messy…"

Tiger felt cold fingers lace around the back of his neck. The primal instinct of prey jumped into his limbs and he sprung from the touch. A firm grasp held him tight, digging into pressure points that almost paralysed his limbs. He twitched and writhed in the painful grip.

"I _am_ going to leave with that money." His captor said matter-of-factly, "One way or another. Now… what am I going to get to do to you before you cave..."

Tiger felt the expert grip, and heard the thrill of excitement in the voice behind him. His insides ran cold. He swallowed, letting his limbs go limp the way his own quarry did when contemplating defeat. He felt the grip behind him alter slightly and took his chance. He thrust his reversed gripped knife back into his attacker's side. There was a hiss of anguish that told Tiger he'd hit his mark, and he leapt away from the grip. He turned his blade and held it before him, panting as he backed into the dark. A thin border of light marked the doorway to the bar. He began to edge very slowly towards it. There were whispers about him in the dark, soft curses in what he vaguely understood to be Mandarin. There was laughter too, amusement. Probably meant to unnerve him, Tiger thought. It was working. His heartbeat was so fast and loud, Tiger could barely hear his own footsteps. He desperately wanted to reach the door, but knew his attacker would anticipate such a move. He was blind again in the dark, only able to catch glimpses of the still silent hulks of his unnaturally immobile friends. He felt himself panicking.

"What did you do to my friends!?" He called loudly, "Is this some kind of game to y-"

A hand closed about his mouth and he felt himself tugged sharply back into a headlock. The sides of his throat were pressed into submission between his attacker's bicep and forearm, and all the resistance went out of Tiger's body as he half fainted onto the floor. Just enough air was kept in his throat to prevent him from passing out. He heard his knife clatter to the ground somewhere. His fingers went to the arm at his neck, trying to loosen the hold.

"You want more air?" The voice said considerately.

Tiger tried to nod, but couldn't move against the grip. He tried to open his mouth but his jaw was rammed firmly shut. He squirmed and a stuttering gasp escaped him.

"No?" The gentle voice asked again, "You only have to say if you need a little more. I'm not unreasonable."

Tiger tried feebly to reply. Unable to do so, he tapped continuously on his attacker's arm, a universal sign amongst martial artists for submission. His attacker seemed not to understand the gesture.

"Well, if it's no trouble to you then…"

Tiger felt himself fading out of consciousness as the arm about his neck constricted. Just before the world went completely black he was given an ounce of air. He sucked it desperately into his lungs. Before he could give them their burning fill, the lock was back on, choking him into oblivion. Dots multiplied across his vision and suffocating dark rose up to take him. Just before he fell into unconsciousness, bursting air was permitted into his starved lungs. He surfaced in a rasping burst like a diver from the deep sucking air in a clawing gasp. In the fraction before he'd drawn in enough to regulate his breathing the muscles squeezed tight on the sides of his neck choking out every morsel he'd just gasped. Tear of frustration and terror welled in his eyes as the dark rose up again, his head pounding and throbbing with the lack of oxygen. Tiger could not tell how longer this persisted, oblivion and sweet relief balanced in a continual cycle that broke his will down to a quivering shivering wreck. His world went small as a pinprick, bullied down to a simple, single craving for that one breath that would relieve him.

There came a point when he realised he'd been permitted to draw two consecutive breaths. He sobbed in relief. His limbs trailed limp on the ground, and he was afraid to touch the arm about his neck lest it tighten again.

"W-whatever you want." He croaked while he had the chance, desperate to get the important words out first. His throat burned with the effort it took to speak. "I'll give you…"

He was released. He sunk slowly back onto his attacker, unable to prevent the collapse.

"Good." He heard the voice, warm and encouraging in his ear. "It's time to run along and fetch the money. Get up."

"One… one moment?" He pleaded. Tiger felt the weight behind him shift, and he closed his eyes tight in anticipation of further pain.

"One moment." His attacker conceded. And Tiger smiled with genuine gratitude in the darkness.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Bi-Han's non-violent approach is not to outright kill anyone. I always found it strange in superhero comics when the hero is considered a goodie so long as they never kill anyone. Torture is totally fine, but death - nope that crosses the line. Here's one protagonist that's definitely not got the moral high ground for following that code.


	37. Love, Blood, and Rain

Bi-Han walked stiffly down the narrow alley with a heavy canvass rucksack on his back. He had chilled the stab wound to his abdomen with ice and bound it over with a quick field dressing, but he had nothing to disinfect it or stitch it up. Pressure and sluggish cold alone were holding back the blood at present. He was doing his best to follow the labyrinthine path back to the gate he'd entered by, but to do this he had to retrace his steps, taking him back past the KBB headquarters. He was aware of how weak the falter in his step looked, and how ripe for the taking the bag on his back was.

His progress was slow. As the sun set, the already-dark alleys became truly black. Sporadic splashes of neon light broke the dark in unhelpful, disorientating, erratic angles. They cast purple and scarlet shadows with flickering inconsistency into empty alleys and set them alive with possible threats. Bi-Han narrowed his eyes. Before him, just above head height was a corrugated iron shelf with a wooden barricade built onto it, holding up some superstructure lost to the dark beyond. He tilted his head, he didn't recognise those shapes. He was sure he would have noticed them before. Unless they looked less remarkable by the wisp of daylight he'd had earlier. He frowned and kept walking. He saw by the graffiti on the walls and the faces that turned away from him as he passed that this was a place of tight communities, none of which were his. There were potholes beneath his feet ready to trip him. There was a constant dripping above him, even though he was fairly sure it wasn't raining. He stopped when the alley before him became as narrow as his shoulders. He took a deep breath. Definitely not the way he had come. He looked up. He wasn't even sure how one could begin scaling buildings like this, or what could take his weight in the scaffolding-like complex above him. And with a heavy bag of cash on his back and a stab wound in his side… He reluctantly turned around and began walked back the way he had come.

In the dark and strange city, where nothing was a friend and any face might hand him over to the KBB, he found a knot of anxiety stirring in him. He wanted to vanish, but the shadows belonged to others. He felt awkwardly vulnerable, with no safe place to turn to. The sounds about him distorted themselves and set him on edge. He paused at one point when he heard footsteps behind him. The footsteps paused when he paused, and continued when he continued. He turned round, and instead of seeing his pursuer, heard a new set of footsteps, this time from the direction he'd been heading. He turned back around and came face to face with a lean man in a sharp suit and hat. Bi-Han squinted in the dark at him. The dark hid his face, but Bi-Han could tattoos on his neck. He was aware of footsteps coming also now from his left and right. He chanced a glance and saw shadowy figures encircling him on all sides. By their shuffle and step he could pick out maybe ten around him in the dark. He tried not to let his dismay show in his posture as he turned back to the man before him. The man took off his hat. Bi-Han winced when he recognised him.

"Qian Desheng," Bi-Han greeted with optimism he hoped didn't sound forced. "I was just on my way out. I think." He added with a faint test at humour.

The second-in-command of the KBB said nothing. The circle about Bi-Han got smaller. The people around him were smartly dressed, all with side arms and loosely rolled sleeves casually revealing twisting tattoos. Bi-Han cursed himself for letting that little knife slip through his guard earlier. He had known there might be trouble getting out of Kowloon. He had foreseen situations like this. He should have been more careful.

"How can I assist you, Mr Qian?" Bi-Han said in Mandarin. He could see the man's eyes narrow in front of him.

"Tiger just came to see me." Qian Deshung spoke in pointed Cantonese.

"Did he now." So Bi-Han had been walking the wrong way long enough for Tiger to regain his senses and flee to his masters. So much for attempting to memorise maps of Kowloon. The police records Grace had given him were all well out of date. There were several entire new tower blocks that had been absent from the plans.

"He told me he paid you what he owed the JFP. And that the matter is settled."

Bi-Han tilted his head in assent.

"He had trouble telling me this though," Desheng's eyes narrowed to thin lines, "His neck was so bruised and raw he could barely speak."

Bi-Han's chest tightened.

"Perhaps he slipped," He grated, hoping Desheng would take a moment to understand where his accusations would take them in terms of clan relations.

Desheng's black look remained. Bi-Han twitched distastefully as water dripped from above and hit the back of his neck. A long buzzing fluorescent bulb lit the second floor of a leering building to his side. It forced strange too-white light onto the wall on Bi-Han's left. Desheng's face was a mass of sharp shadow and relief.

"You will accompany me." Desheng said coolly.

Bi-Han had to immediately keep pace with him in order to avoid being manhandled by the silent enforcers about him.

"Where to?" He hurried to keep up, hoping to direct attention away from his injury. Desheng said nothing, "I have things to say to you that Timothy Chen will not care to hear." The only other situation he'd prepared for was trying to make peace with Desheng. He had some of Grace's politics up his sleeve, but it would all be for nothing if he was taken back to Timothy Chen.

He resigned himself to being escorted in the near total darkness and silence. He found himself quickly disorientated again and his attention waning as each alley looked the same. He ground his teeth as pain flared dully from the knife wound. He was brought to a low roofed street food vendor, with a semi slatted awning extending over a number of circular tables. Desheng stopped. A number of his associates seated themselves nearby. Two remained standing behind Bi-Han. The vendor put down a hot wok she'd been tossing and cleaned her hands on a rag. She served up pan fried chicken with spring onion on a cast iron plate. She set the heavy dish on one of the tables before moving back to her kitchen. Hot steaming aroma chased its way up into the thick overgrowth of apartments lost above them. Desheng's people picked at the dish, though their eyes remained on Bi-Han.

"Name." Desheng said.

"Zho Jinhai."

"Help Mr Zho with his bag."

Bi-Han reluctantly ceded the bag.

"Count the contents." Desheng ordered, and one of his men opened it up and began counting wads of notes.

"Let me take the cash back to my people and this is all behind us." Bi-Han offered. Surely the man could see that this was the only way to stop a war. Bi-Han could feel his nerves grating over the jagged edges of this mission.

"Who do you work for?" Desheng turned back to Bi-Han.

"I told you. My orders came from Julius Hau."

"Not your _orders_. Who do you _work_ for." Desheng fixed him with black eyes. Bi-Han shifted under their scrutiny, they were astute, clever, and patient. They were eyes that cut through deception, and that disturbed him. "You clearly don't work for Kenneth Yeung, he does not have the guts for this kind of manoeuvre and you are not the type to keep his company. You do not work for Julius either. This is too heavy handed a task for him. I don't doubt he gave the orders, but I suspect an ulterior motive at play for him. That means you are little more than a pawn to him, and I'm afraid to say he values his assets highly. Making you not one of them. So I'll ask you again: who do you work for?"

Bi-Han scowled at him. He shifted his weight to give some reprieve to the wound at his side. He glared at the men counting his money, and the others eating their chicken, then at Desheng. After a long sullen moment, he said,

"Grace Yeung."

Desheng's eyebrows raised. He sat back, and Bi-Han saw with relief that the man was interested. That might mean he had some leverage. He remained quiet, waiting to see what would become of the situation.

"Grace Yeung." Desheng rolled the syllables around as he said them, "Yes, that I can imagine. Although this is a long way for her to stretch."

"You have no idea."

Desheng frowned,

"Oh?"

Bi-Han stayed quiet, trying to make out that last phrase was a slip.

"So Grace fancies herself up-and-coming in the JFP?" Desheng stood and wandered between the tables. Bi-Han followed him with his eyes. Desheng went over to the cast iron dish and threw a piece of chicken into his mouth. When Bi-Han thought he wasn't watched, he shifted his weight again. "Injured, Zho?" Desheng said mildly, noticing the movement.

Bi-Han swore faintly, cheeks blushing with embarrassment.

"Take a seat." Desheng said, without turning round.

"I don't need a seat." Bi-Han found a chair pushed behind him and firm hands forcing him down. He let himself be manhandled into the seat and continued to glare at Desheng. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his features as his shirt was stripped off to reveal the weeping stab wound to his abdomen. Dark red had coloured not just the rag he'd tied, but stained his muscles and the leather of his belt. He tried to hide his concern when his arms were pulled tight and bound together behind him. He could feel the itching bindings chaff at his wrists. They were a thick coarse rope. It would be possible to eventually shatter them with cryomancy, but that was the least of his problems right now. He kept his attention focussed on his captor as Desheng walked over to him. The man stopped slightly too close, so that Bi-Han had to tilt his head back to look up at him.

"You assaulted the son of the head of the KBB." Desheng said softly.

"Says who?"

"Now is not the time for games. Tiger says you choked him in and out of consciousness."

"Hardly reliable testimony if he was unconscious half the time."

Desheng ignored him,

"He says you – did something to his friends. Keeps blathering about witchcraft..."

"And what do his friends say?"

Desheng's brow furrowed,

"They admit to being unconscious during the affair..."

"Sounds like bullshit corroboration then."

Desheng's jaw clenched and his glare simmered with violence barely held in check. Bi-Han felt a shiver run down his back. He found it mildly thrilling to be in the presence of someone who frightened him. It put new bravado in his blood to make up for the quantity that was bleeding through the poor bandage. He flexed his shoulders, making the tattoo on his back roll and dance. There was an empty silence that Bi-Han felt might be there for him to inject an apology into. He took his chances and filled it only with a cocky smile. A heavy punch gushed the air from his belly. Bi-Han folded under the impact of the blow and hissed through his teeth. Pain throbbed through his side worse than it had when the knife first stabbed him. He felt blood seep in wider circles through the bandage and soak down his leg. He sucked in his breath and sat straight again with difficulty. The enforcer who'd hit him stood tall again and stepped back.

"I admit to perhaps deserving that." Bi-Han looked up at Desheng again, "I may have been a little rough with Tiger, but I have a-" He winced as the pain in his side flared again, "I have a proposal for you."

"You tortured the son of my boss." Desheng said emptily.

"Torture is such a strong word."

"I will show you it can be much more than that." Desheng signalled with a hand, and the two enforcers stepped forward.

"Of course, the past can change." Bi-Han said quickly.

Something in the way he said that caused Desheng to raise his hand again and pause the punishment.

"What does that mean?"

Bi-Han regarded him through hooded eyes, hands twisting in his bonds to ease the irritation.

"I think you know."

"Speak plainly while it's still permitted."

"The… son of your boss, you said. Well, I mean, he wouldn't be that... if your boss wasn't your boss." A smack of pain hit his jaw and sent the world spinning in and out of darkness. Bi-Han spat blood onto the floor at the feet of the man who'd hit him.

"Hold," Desheng said, a little too late in Bi-Han's mind. "What is Grace planning?"

"The _hff-_ " Bi-Han spat again, enjoying the distaste on his captor's face as he did so, "The real question is, what _could_ _you_ be planning."

"I do not need the half-baked plans of a JFP underling in order to secure my control over the KBB. If I wished its leadership, I would have it. I respect Chen's leadership and serve him loyally."

"Like fuck you do." There were rehearsed lines for this, but agitation, pain and the shattered remains of his plans spat fire into Bi-Han's words. He flinched as the enforcer stepped closer, but Desheng stilled them again. Bi-Han was grateful for the opportunity to clarify, "I've seen your eyes. The way you look at him. The way you stand. The way you wait. I know it because I've done it all my life. You're biding your time for the perfect strike. You want this clan like you want the breath in your lungs." Members of the Lin Kuei had been executed for uttering less than that. Bi-Han swayed on his chair, not caring too much either way just now. It felt so freeing to say the words. Like liberating them gave his soul wings. What he would give for the freedom of no shackles, no masters, no rules, no servitude. Just power, control, and sweet release from all the necessities shouldered on him for so long.

Desheng pushed him back in his chair with one hand.

"You're bleeding out and half delirious."

"But also right, yeah?"

"See to his wounds. And untie him. We can't send him back to the JFP like this."

"Can you send me back with all that cash please, or Julius'll send me on another cracked up suicide mission." Bi-Han closed his eyes and let his head loll back. He felt the cords of his wrists snap free and he rubbed blood back into them.

"In the habit of pissing off important people, are you?"

Bi-Han gave a wonky smile as he let his wound be redressed, lifting his arms up so Desheng's men could unwind the bandages and clean it,

"Something like that."

Desheng crouched down so that he was eye level with Bi-Han. Bi-Han instinctively drew back, wary,

"I don't know what Grace Yeung has planned, but I'm curious." He said softly, "I have no interest in backing loosing sides, but neither have I any interest in starting clan wars. Do you understand?"

Bi-Han wasn't sure was he was getting at, but he nodded anyway because the man was armed and a hairs breath away, and two enormous enforcers were binding a currently very painful injury.

"I'm going to let you go." Desheng continued, "I'm not letting what you've done to Tiger go, I'm letting you go because keeping you here is like keeping an unexploded bomb in my home. I shall keep Tiger quiet for the next few weeks. But if I haven't been compensated for my generosity by the time Timothy Chen realises the full extent of your offence… then there will be war."

"Got it, Mr Qian." Bi-Han slipped back into Mandarin and saluted vaguely.

Desheng gave him a withering look, but the immediate threat Bi-Han had sensed earlier was gone from him.

"Do I get my money?"

Desheng indicated the bag should be handed back to Bi-Han.

"And an escort to show me the way out of this fucking maze?"

"Watch your tone." Desheng growled. He gave Bi-Han the enforcer who'd been beating him as a guide. Bi-Han gave a half formal bow that was stunted by his wound and the lack of blood in his head. He was slightly slow getting his bearings, but very quick to leave Desheng's presence and the heavily armed escort eating chicken at the street food shop.

Bi-Han was lead around the back of the shop and then up a rickety set of steps, that soon became a series of ladders. The ladders clung to the sheer side of the buildings and in places creaked with rust. Bi-Han climbed without complaint despite the wound and the heavy canvass bag back on his back.

Just when he thought the enforcer was toying with him, he found himself the roof of the world. The rooftop of Kowloon was a smudge of dark in a sea of light – an island of shadow in amidst the bright of all Hong Kong by night. Antenna from a thousand thousand homes grew as a thick forest with wiry arms that stretched black against a distant silver moon. Bi-Han shielded his eyes after the dark of the streets below. A crumble of thunder peeled behind him and he felt specks of rain on his cheeks.

"Not something you see everyday" He murmured. He was urged on by the enforcer who was eager to tread the precarious rooftop route before the rain slicked everything to slippery treachery. Bi-Han followed him warily. The bridges between the rooftops were at times little more than wooden planks laid between buildings. The bright night lights of Hong Kong only served to cast everything around them into deep silhouette, obscuring detail and hiding the deep depths of a fall from this height.

Bi-Han paused again when the rain started to fall more heavily. It flashed white about him, refracting the neon from the city beyond as it fell. There were few sights that awed him any more, but Kowloon by night was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. It possessed a raw energy to it that felt more alive than any other place he'd visited. The city wasn't planned, it wasn't permitted, it just was. It lived, it breathed, it did whatever it pleased and dealt with its own darkness in its own way. Bi-Han had thought no such place could exist in this world. To him, life was structured by the Lin Kuei, while the lives of civilians out there, in the world, were structured by institutions just as malicious and claustrophobic in their demands and reach. But Kowloon. In Kowloon one could be alive. He tilted back his head. A rush of sweeping rain came hovering over the roofs in a sheet of sound. Rain beat down around them turning the blackness wet and shining. Bi-Han let the sudden downpour take him, keeping his face upturned to the pound of rain on his skin. Lives he could almost imagine beyond the Lin Kuei walls raced down him like the fresh wings of the storm. Another toll of thunder shook the air and splinter of fork lightening cracked the jagged rooftops into sharp relief.

"Always landed with the psychos." Bi-Han heard the enforcer grate under his breath before he grabbed Bi-Han's bicep and pulled him into shelter.

An hour later, Bi-Han was standing, drenched, beyond the limits of Kowloon. A sodden bag of half a million in cash was on his back, along with the tattered remains of his shirt, and a series of now purpling bruises on his wrists, jaw, and as a welt across his stomach. He walked to a payphone and laughed aloud hysterically on finding he had no change. The absurd amount of money he was carrying and he couldn't even make a phonecall. He dialled for the emergency services.

"What service do you require?"

"Police."

"State the nature of you emergency."

"Need a lift. JFP. I'm on Lok Sin Road, edge of Kowloon. Send a car to take me to Grace Yeung." He hung up. Coming out on top of a war against the police had its perks. He leaned back against a wall and looked up at the outer face of Kowloon – towering about the neighbourhoods surrounding it. Bi-Han sighed, for the first time feeling like he had left behind a home.

* * *

 **Author Note:** When things start going bad for him, I bet he just gets more sassy. Sorry for the delay this week, I'm travelling at the moment. This'll probably be the chapter for last week and this week. Got a little more work to do on my buffer before I'm happy posting. Thanks for all your comments and kudos - real nice to see folks are still enjoying what has become quite a long story!


	38. Fragile Steps of Peace

"I told you there's a renegade police cell about. You need to be more careful with using police radios until we deal with the threat."

"I'm here with you, aren't I?" Bi-Han closed his eyes, letting a doctor attending to him clean the stab wound with a damp warm flannel. Grace had brought him to the private clinic owned by the JFP. It was far more comfortable than the medical wing of the Lin Kuei Temple.

"How did you get stabbed anyway? I thought I told you to steer clear of picking fights. We're not ready for a clan war right now." Grace was impatient, but it was the endearing impatience for those in her inner circle, not the knife edge tone she took with those who displeased her.

Bi-Han opened his eyes slightly,

"I stayed clear of picking fights with anyone important, but Tiger Chen needed crushing down to size."

Grace swore faintly and put a hand to her head.

"I cleared everything up with Qian Desheng. He'll hold off retribution for now. He's counting on you catapulting him into the leadership of his clan though." Bi-Han's lip twitched as disinfectant was swiped over the gash in his side.

"Just a small peace offering then." Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"I'll sort it all out, don't worry." He said vaguely.

"I have to live with this mess after all this is over. Not all of us can just waltz away once the violence is over."

Bi-Han glanced at her sharply, then at the doctor tending to him. She gave a reluctant nod, agreeing not to mention the temporary nature of Bi-Han's work in front of a third party. Grace perched on the end of the hospital bed. The room was large and spacious with a tall tropical pot plant and large soothing landscape photographs. Long glass windows looked out into a square manicured garden. Dawn was touching a simple fountain in its centre, babbling between smooth round stones and neatly trimmed bushes and plants. Grace checked her watch,

"Your brother will be here soon."

"Huh? He's coming here?" Bi-Han cracked his sleepy eyes open wider. It had been a long trying night and he'd trailed a fair amount of blood through Kowloon.

"I had someone look in on him after you left. He asked to be brought to you when you returned. He's been up all night anxious about your Kowloon exploits."

"Look in on him? Not Anton, I hope."

Grace didn't bother answering that. She got up and pushed aside the hanging blinds that gave the room privacy. Beyond was the clinic corridor, and beyond that the car park. Yellow headlights swung into the room through the crack in the blinds.

"You better get that cash to Julius Hau as quickly as possible. Quian Desheng won't stay his hand forever. If we want to avoid a war on two fronts, we're going to need to get a move on."

Bi-Han shifted uncomfortably on the bed,

"They will exploit my weaknesses if I go to them before this heals." He nodded to the stab wound. Julius and Clarence Tse had used a simple tattoo to pick him apart and study him. He hated the thought of what they might do if he came in with a fresh knife wound. They could dissect a man with stares alone, and Bi-Han felt he'd had more than enough dissecting recently.

"I told you before, vulnerability will serve you well around my father's men. You will be seen as less of a threat."

"Because I _am_ less of a threat! If I'm not at the top of my game then when things start to go wrong I can't fix them. I can't control-"

"It's not about control, Zho."

"It is for me!"

She turned round from the window and looked at him. One of her eyebrows raised. Bi-Han found himself blushing slightly. He ploughed on regardless.

"What I mean is – when I'm in control, things go to plan. The results I get you come from careful planning, not from blundering into situations with heavily armed dangerous people with a gaping whole in my side."

"Whilst I'm thrilled you're finally talking caution, you're going about all this in the wrong way. To get to people you cannot always appear as an unstoppable juggernaut. You need to weave a story of up and downs into their life. Give them ways to trust you, ways to manipulate you.

"What do you think I've been doing all this time," Bi-Han growled.

She raised her other eyebrow in warning, glancing again at the doctor. Bi-Han looked away sullenly.

"It's not my father's style to set a man a mission only to kill him on his return. If it was a simple matter of wanting you dead, you never would have met Julius and Clarence."

"You fill me with reassurance." Bi-Han said coldly.

"Enough, Zho. Have a little faith. I know what I'm doing. You do this my way up until the very end. Or do we need to discuss our agreement again."

He shook his head,

"We'll do it your way."

"Good." She said, clearly not expecting any other answer. "Now stop moping. Someone is here to see you."

The door opened and Kuai ran in,

"B-…" Kuai managed to cut off Bi-Han's name before it poured from his mouth. He ran to his brother's bedside and flung arms around him.

"Mind his bandage, please." The doctor said sharply.

"Bandage?!" Kuai pulled back, "Are you-?"

"I'm fine." Bi-Han rolled his eyes as Kuai's face filled with concern.

"How did someone hurt you?!"

"Believe it or not, I'm not impervious to steel."

From Kuai's face it looked like he didn't believe it. The idea that his perfect brother could be hurt and injured like any other human being had drained him of colour.

"Ergh." Bi-Han made a face, "Stop looking like that. You know I hate it when you look upset." He shuffled over with difficulty on the hospital bed and patted next to him. "Sit."

Kuai pulled himself up onto the bed next to Bi-Han, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"I'll see you later, Zho." Grace turned her hand in a vague wave, "Let me know when you want to finish the mission. I'm warning you though – don't leave it too long."

She left and the door clicked shut behind her. Kuai tugged the corner of the hospital blanket over himself too. The doctor tutted in disapproval.

"That'll do." Bi-Han waved the doctor away, "Come back later."

"Mr Zho-" The doctor protested.

Bi-Han gave a sharp jerk of his head and the doctor left. Bi-Han looked down at his brother.

"Heard you didn't sleep much."

"I was worried," Kuai said in a small voice. A quiet settled. Gentle dawn light filled the garden beyond the windows and steeped the hospital room in long warm shadows. "I did some practice though. I made a sword of ice and I did a whole form with it before it shattered. Do you remember a few months ago when I could barely make one at all?"

"You're progressing fast." Bi-Han smiled at him at ruffled his hair. Kuai glowed at the praise.

"Bi-Han…?" He said thoughtfully.

Bi-Han sighed. He always recognised Kuai's contemplative voice, full of revelations beyond his years and trouble in the making.

"I wish we could always be like this."

"Like what, me stabbed in a hospital bed and you stealing my covers?"

"I'm not stealing them!" Kuai protested, but then he paused, and checked to make sure the blanket covered his brother too.

"Ah. Leave it." Bi-Han batted him away.

"I mean I wish we could stay here as people living lives. You always seem much calmer and happier. And you say kinder things to me. You wear what you like and do what you like and you seem-"

"Softer."

"Y-" Kuai paused, realisation hitting him. He looked up, suddenly afraid, "No! I didn't mean...-"

Bi-Han was once more an unreadable wall, stony eyes reminding Kuai of the Lin Kuei once more.

"That's what the civilian world does to you. It makes you soft. Stay too long and you become tepid, worthless, undisciplined-"

"You don't really think that! I've seen you – you seem happier, you seem more free!"

"What do you know of free." Bi-Han said bitterly.

"Not much." Kuai looked up at him with bright honest eyes, "But I'd like to know more."

"Treason." Bi-Han muttered, but without venom.

"I learn from the best." Kuai grinned.

Bi-Han seemed to blink with surprise,

"What? I never-…" He turned dark eyes to Kuai, "I am loyal to the Lin Kuei!"

Kuai tried to gauge that response. He wasn't sure if it was an angry protest, or a Bi-Han trying to assure himself. Not wanting to walk into further trouble, Kuai stayed quiet. Bi-Han's words hung in the air. In the silence after them, they both lay thinking. After a little, Kuai nudged a little closer. He was relieved when he wasn't pushed away. He felt a pent up breath release from his brother's chest. A slightly uncertain hand draped itself over Kuai's shoulders and drew him closer. Kuai smiled to himself and closed his eyes.

Kuai awoke in the empty hospital bed to find a white plastic table on a moveable arm in front of him, topped with a juice carton and a box of cookies. He blinked in the bright light. The sun was high in the sky and Bi-Han was nowhere to be seen.

Kuai poked the straw into the juice cartoon and sipped sullenly. He jumped down from the bed and peered through the blinds. He frowned then looked back at the empty room. He noticed Bi-Han's jacket and sunglasses neatly folded on a chair at the side. He pulled on the jacket and admired the way its arms draped long below his finger tips. He pushed sunglasses onto his nose that swamped half his face. He meandered out into the clinic corridor and up to the reception, sucking noisily on his orange juice.

"Hey!" He waved to get the receptionists attention, "Hey have you seen my brother?"

"He left this morning. He had work to do." The receptionist gave a kind smile as Kuai huffed. "There's a car for you outside."

"For me?" Kuai's chest puffed up with pride.

"Ms Grace said you were to be taken wherever you wished."

Kuai pushed his new sunglasses up his nose,

"Well, in that case. Uh… what time is it?"

The receptionist pointed to a clock on the wall,

"One fifteen P.M."

Kuai delved into his trouser pockets – the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday. He pulled out a small sheet of paper, cello-taped lots of times to stop it ripping. He ran his fingers down the grid.

"Can the car drive me to my history lesson? I'm meant to be there now."

Kuai was still wearing the oversized jacket and sunglasses when he walked into Mr Martin's history lesson half-an-hour after it had started.

"Tao!" Mr Martin said sharply, "What time do you call this? And what are you wearing?!"

Kuai blinked a little sleepily,

"I just woke up. It's my brother's jacket, but I like it." He took a cookie out his pocket and stuffed it in his mouth.

The outrage on Mr Martin's face went through various curious stages, until it faded to faint anxiety.

"Your… your brother's?

"Uh huh." Kuai said around his mouthful. He pulled a worksheet over that was lying on his desk and began reading.

Mr Martin's objections seem to disintegrate, and suddenly he didn't seem that concerned about Kuai's attire or tardiness.

Kuai sat and listened as Mr Martin talked about empires and trade and wars. _He could be talking about just the gangs here in Hong Kong_ , he thought, and his attention drifted to window, where the trees on the hillside were putting out their first tentative blossoms. A movement out the corner of his eyes drew him back to the history lesson.

Two rows away Nianzu was giving him a look of cold, calculated hatred. He couldn't make eye contact with Kuai through his dark sunglasses, so instead Kuai could see him glaring at his jacket, at his face, even at his worksheet and his unused pencil.

When the bell rang Nianzu hissed at him as he shouldered passed,

"You think you're really something don't you, Tao."

Kuai frowned as Nianzu stalked off down the corridor.

At break time there was a cold wind threatening to shake off the early blossoms on the trees. Kuai watched young petals skate on rippled puddles. His mind was in a thousand places and nowhere in particular when he heard footsteps approach him.

Nianzu's steps cut up reflections and he stamped through the puddles towards Kuai. The friends who were always at his side were a way off, following only with their eyes, muttering to each other and folding their arms. Kuai's heart sunk, pent-up frustration was steaming off Nianzu. There was black challenge in his eyes. Kuai regarded it sadly.

" _You._ " Nianzu started. "You think you can do whatever you like!"

Kuai thought about this, but didn't have an answer, so just stood quietly.

"I know your brother spoke to my father," Nianzu hissed, "You better be glad he did. He saved you from me."

"Are you sure?"

Nianzu squinted at Kuai, confused at the reply,

"What?" He said.

"Are you sure he wasn't saving you from me?" Kuai said it so plainly and evenly, that Nianzu immediately glanced around to see who had heard. There was no one in earshot.

"You upstart little-… your brother maybe be Triad, but my father-"

"I'm not talking about my brother or your father. Just us here and now." Kuai's words weren't angry or provocative, just simple and unadorned. He took a step forward. Nianzu took a step back. Kuai's hands hung at his side, he moved his fingers in a soft, almost imperceptible gesture. A fine silvery mist wisped forth, hardening as a small patch of ice behind Nianzu. Kuai took another step forward. Nianu matched him and he feet went out from under him, grip lost on the ice. He fell hard on the ground. His eyes were dark and wild as he looked up at Kuai from the floor. Kuai gave him a long plain look. It wasn't a threatening look, just one that intimated that power had been restrained.

Nianzu's friends nudged each other and began to walk over quickly. From the other side of the playground, Elizabeth and Steven saw what was happening and hurried across the wet concrete. Elizabeth was wearing her hair in a functional bun, positioned so that someone wouldn't have much leverage over her head if they pulled her hair. Steven was walking with his shoulders back. It gave him a new posture, and between that and Kuai and Elizabeth calling him Steven, the name _Qingwa_ had almost completely dropped from his peers' lips.

"Everything OK, Tao?" Steven asked. Nianzu's friends hovered, close, but reluctant to come nearer now that Kuai had backup.

"Of course." Kuai said, he gave Steven a smile, and then turned it on Nianzu, "Nianzu and I were discussing how best to fall. Nianzu did quite well there, breaking the fall with his hands, but its best to use the whole soft underpart of both forearms. And to try and roll a little rather than falling statically. If you roll with the fall it'll take some of the momentum out of the impact. But not straight back – roll straight and your spine is grating on the concrete. Best to go at an angle – shoulder to hip if you can."

"Oh!" Steven's eyes were bright with new knowledge. He crouched down and rolled back, on the ground, slapping his arms out as he did. "Like this?"

"Let me try!" Elizabeth sat down in a puddle to try, but she didn't seem to mind getting wet in order to have a go.

"That's good," Kuai offered. Nianzu's friends were frowning in confusion and shuffling at the strange turn of events. "You can roll all the way back too," Kuai explained, "but that's maybe more risky, since you could hit your head."

"Show us, Tao!" Elizabeth said from her puddle.

"It's probably not the best time now." He extended a hand to Nianzu, "Want another try?"

Nianzu stared at the hand. He looked at Steven and Elizabeth sitting on the ground with him, then up at his peers still standing uncertainly. He looked at Kuai, and saw hard lines in his face, ready to take a stand, but also an openness and a genuiness, offering him a way out of his humiliating position. Nianzu took the hand uncertainly. Kuai pulled him up.

Everyone went quiet.

The ice patch Nianzu had slipped on had melted to another windswept puddle.

Nianzu cleared his throat,

"So, you can do a full backwards breakfall?" His voice grew in confidence, "Show us then."

Kuai took a breath. He let himself fall back, slapped out an arm as he hit the floor and rolled hip to shoulder, tucking his head under, and moving with the fall in a single fluid motion. He finished crouched on two feet, then stood upright.

"Neat!" Said Nianzu, and he sounded as awed as he had the first time Kuai had told him about intestines and how they went on forever and looked like worms.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I like the idea that Kuai never needs to prove superiority in order to know where he stands with someone. It's not the excerising of power that makes him strong but the restraint. He could hurt people but lots of the time he doesn't need to. Whereas for Bi-Han hurting people keeps his head in order and stops him feeling like he's falling apart.


	39. Playing the High End Game

Bi-Han had stopped home only to shower and change his shirt. Within half an hour, he was sharing the back of Nissan Fairlady Z with a smart black briefcase. Grace had transferred the money out of the canvas bag into something more respectable looking. She'd successfully convinced him that he should be more worried about sitting around with unreturned JFP cash than about walking into a room with Julius and Clarence whilst still bleeding.

He wasn't really bleeding any more anyway. The doctor had stitched him up and there was a good tight bandage round his middle. The stitches weren't going to stay in place if he moved around too much, but hopefully he wouldn't have to run for his life any time soon. Hopefully.

One of Grace's lower down runners was driving him. Bi-Han vaguely knew the woman as someone who dealt with money in one of Grace's other bordellos. She pulled into a road off one of the main high streets in north Hong Kong Island. The engine growled to a stop in front of smart impressive high rise, like one of thousands of others in Hong Kong.

"This where the high-ups in the JFP hang out?" He asked her.

"This is where I was told to drive you," The woman corrected, giving him a look that said he was fool to ask where headquarters were. Bi-Han sighed. He picked up the briefcase and got out the car. The driver wound down the window, "Ask to see Julius, Grace says. He should be expecting you."

Bi-Han found himself in another lobby, waiting again amidst finery and his own nerves. When this mission was over, he was going to request a year's worth of in-and-out nighttime assassinations. He'd seen enough pot plants and modern art paintings for a lifetime.

He was sent in an elevator to the seventh floor. When the elevator doors opened Bi-Han stood still and blinked. He'd gotten used to elevator doors opening onto a lot of strange sights, but he still hadn't been prepared for this.

The outside of the highrise had implied that its interior might be offices, or perhaps expensive rented apartments. The seventh floor was an enormous gold glittering casino, bustling even in the mid-afternoon with smooth dressed players of every nationality sitting about the green velvet of card tables and meandering past smart waiters balancing silver trays of winking pink champagne. Bi-Han's heart sunk into his shoes. His suit was crisp, but functionally crisp, and not at all the flamboyance this event required. His shirt was a deep blue, sending him from the foreground of any social occasion into the background. It was a look he usually favoured with the JFP, but in a place where everyone was gaudy and bright, his simple dark attire cut him out and called attention. He took a hesitant step into the grand hall. There were chandeliers hanging from a domed polished ceiling and a thick layer of constant speech kept a droning pitch in his ears wherever he turned. His hand slipped into his jacket pocket and curled around the phone there. He half wished it would ring and Sektor would be on the line again, berating him for carelessness over the stab wound, or talking through how to read a room of high society. Bi-Han's eyes flicked over the room, searching out exits, shadows, points of ambush, suspicious characters. Sektor would be taking apart the card sorting machines in his mind and trying to figure out how they worked. The flicker of a smile that thought brought Bi-Han bolstered his confidence.

"Zho Jinhai?" A waiter was at Bi-Han's elbow.

Bi-Han nodded.

The waiter indicate with a gloved hand towards the back of the hall,

"There's a V.I.P lounge at the back, Mr Hau will see you there."

Bi-Han threaded his way through the crowds, muttering _excuse mes_ that fell on ears deaf to anything but the shuffle of cards, the clack of chips, and the roll of roulette balls. The eyes that did settle on him showed disdain, marking him as not their own. They slid on from him like one who tries to ignore a lapse in manners. He lowered his gaze. He was surprised to find his temper simmering at this behaviour. Usually he enjoyed gliding unnoticed around vanity and wealth. But he wasn't here as Sub-Zero. It was Jinhai Zho they were ignoring, because Jinhai didn't meet the standard they deemed worth their time. He turned his elbows out slightly so that their shoved hard into people who didn't move for him. A trail of _tuts_ and mutters followed him as he pushed through to the V.I.P. lounge. He'd never felt more relieved to see a bouncer.

He stalked up to the large men in black suits. The tails of tattoos snaked out from their shirt sleeves.

"These people treat you like shit too?" He murmured.

"Mmmhmm." Said one of the bouncers, eyes not leaving the crowds. "Mr Hau is waiting for you, step inside please." The other bouncer unhooked a red rope barrier for him.

The V.I.P. lounge was beyond a further set of oak doors. These gave way to a long wood panelled room, nowhere near the size of the casino hall, but still handsome in proportions. It was dominated by a long polished table. A large group of men sat or stood at one end of the table. A crystal decanter was before them, along with an array of half empty glasses. Bi-Han stopped, all his uncertainty returning. He stayed quiet and still by the door, waiting to be called forward.

Eventually Julius leaned back on his chair, he gave a loose beckon to Bi-Han. Julius had toned down some of the outrageous colours he liked, but the inner lapels of his black shirt were still lime green. When he winked with his gestures, like he did now, the lime green flashed into view.

"Zho! Good to see you. Come here, come here, don't be shy."

The group of men stopped in their quiet revelry and watched Bi-Han approach.

"That the cash?" Julius pointed to the briefcase. It felt strangely crude to be talking money in amidst all this splendour.

Bi-Han nodded and offered the briefcase.

Julius took it, and, without opening it, set it on the table and slid it down the polished wood. Clarence Tse stopped it with firm hand. His bony scarred face regarded Bi-Han silently, but said nothing.

"Good on you." Julius continued. "Any trouble? I haven't heard we're at war, so I'm hoping not."

Bi-Han was trying to gauge the other men in the room and single out what he could about them, but it was hard under Julius' all-consuming attention.

"No trouble." Bi-Han said quietly, "A scuffle," He touched his injured side, "But nothing more."

"Ah, I knew you could do it!" Julius was far too boisterous compared to everyone else in the room. His head was shaved into hypnotic patterns, Bi-Han realised on closer inspection. "Clarence here thought I set you an impossible task, but not me, knew you could do it." He clapped Bi-Han on the shoulder. Bi-Han tried not to flinch from the unwanted contact. "So I guess you could be useful to us after all, eh, Mr Zho?"

It ended like a question, but Bi-Han wasn't sure what kind of a response it merited. There were a lot of eyes watching him. Sharp eyes, inquisitive eyes.

"Yes, sir."

Julius smiled again,

"So, what do you think, Mr Yeung? I told you he was young, but he's not stupid if he walked that cash out of Kowloon."

Bi-Han's eyes snapped up. Someone addressed as Mr Yeung could only mean one thing. He surveyed the stony faces before him, all middle-aged men or older, greying a little, some with glasses. In their midst Bi-Han caught one face that looked familiar. It looked like Grace Yeung. Bi-Han stared. He stared until he realised the leader of the JFP had raised an eyebrow, so he lowered his eyes. Bi-Han snaked his gaze back up after a few moments past. Mr Yeung gave a slight wave toward the decanter. Someone pulled the crystal stop out the top and poured him a glass of golden fluid.

Mr Yeung sipped, then surveyed Julius over the top of his glass. He spoke in a tone that was measured and rich. It was a voice not used to needing to be raised.

"Julius, you know I really don't care who your next project is. Nobody else here needs to parade their work in front of me in order to get their job done." Mr Yeung wiped his lips and set his glass down. It clinked on the polished wooden surface.

If Julius was hurt by the cutting remark he didn't show it.

"Zho here has spent the last three months retiring police informants for Gracie." Julius indicated with a grand gesture as he spoke. Bi-Han felt like a horse at auction.

Mr Yeung's brow raised,

"My daughter disrupted the long held peace the Jade Fist have had with the Hong Kong Police Force." He said this indistinctly, to no one in particular.

"The Hong Kong Police Force disrupted that peace, not Grace." Bi-Han said suddenly. He took a deep silent breath. Eyes turned on him, and he felt like they were somehow seeing him as if for the first time. "They sent an undercover agent in our midst."

"Then Grace was a fool to allow herself to be infiltrated." Mr Yeung sharply though still without giving Bi-Han eye contact, "If she'd stuck to what she'd been ordered instead of trying to snatch up more than she can handle, then none of this would have happened."

Bi-Han's eyes narrowed, but Mr Yeung was already returning to his drink, eyes devoid of interest. Bi-Han could see how this man's children could wind up hating, terrified, and in awe of him.

"Well, he's out of her hands now." Julius's boisterous energy lapsed easily into a cool, lounging, calm. "And we've been down some muscle since Albert-…" Julius cut himself off, but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing, because lots of face snapped up and gave him disapproving stares. Only Clarence Tse gave a slight sigh and almost imperceptible shake of his head.

"Keep him if you want him, Julius." Mr Yeung said, clearly tiring of the conversation.

Julius turned to Bi-Han and gave him a shrug,

"That's it kid. The go-ahead from the great Ambrose Yeung. You get to handle the real murders now."

"Julius..." Mr Yeung gave him a withering look, "Not at the meeting table, please."

"My work's unsavoury for those who like to pretend it's all investments and legitimate business." Julius explained loudly to Bi-Han with a wink.

"Julius." Clarence Tse said sharply. He had the briefcase in one hand. "Bring Mr Zho. We have matters to discuss."

"'Scuse me, gents." Julius stood and stretched, "Mother's calling." He gave a sharp tick of his finger, motioning Bi-Han to follow. The three of them exited by a side door at the far end of the hall. The door closed behind them, sending them into relative dark.

"Do you have to rile them up so, Julius?" Clarence sounded tired, less guarded than Bi-Han had heard him before.

"Ah, keeps them on their toes. It pisses me off that they forget I've got a whole wing of people out there doing dirty work so that their cheques don't bounce."

"You test Ambrose's patience."

"Been testing his patience nearly thirty years and it ain't snapped yet."

Clarence sighed again. Bi-Han was surprised by the genuineness of their conversation. Perhaps this was what life was like the other side of an okay from the head of the Jade Fist Pact.

"Where'd you want to head, fifth floor?" Julius asked Clarence.

"Basement."

"Straight to business then." Julius pressed a button in the wall and doors of an elevator rolled open, lighting the dark corridor with a soft glow. They stood in silence in the lift as it descended.

"I'd advise against you talking out against Mr Yeung again, Zho." Clarence was looking at the ceiling as he said this.

"Eh, shows he's got flare, let him be." That was Julius.

"On the topic of Ms Grace, Mr Yeung has even less patience."

"Oh. Sure. Don't talk to the boss about his kids, Zho."

Bi-Han's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Julius and Clarence bickered lightly all the way down to the basement, and were still picking apart each other's conduct when the doors opened. Bi-Han was ready for anything this time, and was a little under-whelmed to see the basement was just a basement. There was a low roof and low lighting and unadorned concrete walls. It looked like the place was being used as a warehouse. Beyond a large stack of boxes covered in a sheet there was a small table with fold-away chairs circling it.

"This here, Zho-" Julius pointed at the table, "This here is a little piece of history."

"Oh here we go." Clarence said below his breath.

Julius gave him a sardonic smile before returning to Bi-Han,

"Right here is where we used to run the JFP from. Me, Clarence, Albert, Ambrose, none of the bigwigs you see upstairs. Here is where the magic happened. 'Course, Ambrose doesn't get down here much these days."

"Julius!" Clarence said sharply.

Julius shrugged. He pulled himself up onto the table. Clarence set the briefcase next to him and opened it. He began sorting through the cash, checking bundles and snapping elastic bands around them.

"Glad everything went down well in Kowloon." Julius grinned.

"About that…" It might not be for long, but Bi-Han was going to have to work with these people. That meant being able to trust they weren't planning to get him killed every time they sent him out the front door. "Tiger Chen seemed to be under the impression he was on good terms with you. Even seemed to think you let him keep the product in dispute."

Julius pulled one leg up on the table and leaned his chin on his knee. He said nothing, but fixed Bi-Han with a curiously piercing stare. Bi-Han hesitated, wondering if he'd overstepped himself.

"Julius." Clarence Tse said, without looking up, "Now isn't the time for theatrics."

Julius gave Bi-Han a toothy grin that still made Bi-Han uncomfortable.

"Tiger said that, did he?"

Bi-Han stayed quiet.

"Well. The kid always had a big mouth on him. But yeah, sure. I told him he could keep the crack unless Ken went in personally to fetch it back. Dear Ken and his branch have been cutting a lot of corners in the last few years – taking the easy road as it were."

"I noticed." Bi-Han said to his shoes.

"You did? Hm. Well good. His lot have been driving me insane. Ambrose keeps telling me to play nicely with his brother, but if Kenneth wasn't blood I swear-"

A disapproving huff from Clarence silenced that trail of thought. Julius seemed not to mind. He seemed to rely on Clarence in place of his own self-restraint or conscience.

"Tiger give you a run for your money?" Julius changed angle.

Bi-Han nodded.

"Didn't cause him any lasting damage, I hope?"

Bi-Han shook his head.

"Good lad. Now. Mobile phone." His voice was suddenly business-like.

Bi-Han pulled his phone out of his pocket uncertainly. Julius took it, then tossed it on the floor. He pulled a handgun from inside his jacket and shot the phone. The phone exploded into pieces. Bi-Han's eyes went wide and he flinched away from the sound. Clarence looked up and gave Julius a cold stare. Julius ignored him. He jumped up and flicked the corner of a sheet of a cardboard box filled with plastic foam squares. He rummaged inside it and pulled out a new phone. He threw it to Bi-Han.

"There you go. All clean."

Bi-Han stared at the thing in his hands. It was much the same as the old one, but he sorely resented the old one being destroyed. The old one had Grace's number on it. And Kuai Liang could call him on it. And Sektor. A lot of incriminating contacts in fact. Perhaps it was best it had been destroyed after all.

"So-oo. Guns." Julius went over to a stack of black plastic boxes and flicked the lock open.

"I don't… do guns. I do best without them."

"You can learn." Julius was picking out firearms and holding them up for size, pointing them at the wall before replacing them and selecting another.

"I like the feeling of sticking a knife in someone's throat and watching the life leave their eyes. I can't do that with a gun. So what's the point in using them."

That got Julius' attention. He kept the gun he'd picked up in his hand, then turned very deliberately. He walked slowly over to Bi-Han and stopped in front of him. His quick eyes fixed Bi-Han.

"The point is they can help complete a job-" Julius' tone was quiet and had an edge to it that made Bi-Han feel like he was back in Kowloon with Qian Desheng. "Jobs that don't need to be quiet. Unexpected moments where you're outnumbered. Even just giving someone a little scare."

"I don't need a gun to frighten people. Ask Tiger Chen." Bi-Han stared Julius down.

Julius' nose was an inch from Bi-Han's. His eyes went narrow as slits.

There was a slight cough. Julius turned around. Clarence Tse was looking at them both through bored eyes.

"When you've quite finished?"

Julius glowered at him. He went back, threw the gun in and slammed the lid of the firearms box down and slid the latches shut.

"Kill people however you wish." Clarence said to Bi-Han, "Just get it done and get it right. We have a schedule to meet. There's a law suit against an associate of Mr Yeung's. The witnesses testifying all need to be dead by the end of next week. The list please, Julius?"

Julius pulled a sheet of paper out of his inner jacket pocket sullenly and handed it to Clarence, eyes still on Bi-Han.

"They're all in protective custody, but we've located all their whereabouts, you just need to go in and take them out."

Bi-Han half raised an eyebrow. Even at the top level of the JFP his talents were still wasted. The Lin Kuei were hired to hunt down as well as assassinate targets. They weren't just hitmen, they were predators. This would be easy work, but at least he was being handed the fun end of it.

"Sure." He said, taking the paper without looking at it.

Clarence clicked the briefcase of money he'd been counting shut,

"Report back to Julius when you're done, provided he's finished sulking."

Julius gave a huff.

"What should the deaths look like?" Bi-Han asked, "Mob, natural, professional?"

Julius stood slowly. Bi-Han stopped himself from taking a step back. Julius stretched and cracked his neck.

"We don't want our names all over the crime scene. Just on the lips of those thinking of ratting on us again."

"Brutal but not incriminating. Fine." Bi-Han said. And like that, Julian was grinning again.

"He gets it." Julius nudged Clarence.

"I know." Clarence said moving away from the elbow digging in his side. "My business is concluded here. If you've nothing more to say to Mr Zho, Julius, then we should see him up to the door."

Bi-Han was shown to the exit and he declined the service of a car. He instead took a bus to the east side of town. He then took another one west, and then north. He then got out and walked, and when he was sure he wasn't tailed, slipped into Grace's headquarters via a side door. He made his way unseen to her office and let himself in silently. Grace nearly spilt the tea in her hand when she caught sight of him.

"You're not supposed to be here." She hissed. "I will contact you when-"

Bi-Han tossed his new mobile phone onto her desk,

"Julius shot the other one."

She heaved an irritable sigh. She picked up the device and began typing her number into the contacts.

"Well, given that you're here now, I might as well update you."

Bi-Han seated himself on her desk. He picked up her well-thumbed copy of _Il Principe_ and flicked through it.

"I exchanged a few messages with Qian Desheng," She said.

Bi-Han looked up,

"You did?"

"Mmm." Grace took the book from his hands and set it in the desk draw, "He's definitely interested. Pliable even. I've suggested to him that he nudge Timothy Chen in the direction of an inter clan meeting, so it'll-"

"Come from the KBB and not us!" Bi-Han finished, "Genius!" Not a word that often feature in his vocabulary.

"Thank-you, Zho." Grace said sardonically, "At least one of us can make your shit-shows into quality art." She seated herself heavily and crossed one leg over the other, reaching for her tea again, "The meeting will be planned for new year, as an olive branch of peace. For our purposes – the streets will be crowded, meaning even if we haven't put this renegade police cell down, they should have a hard time moving on the street."

Bi-Han's smile faded and his customary frown returned.

"The police cell haven't been dealt with yet? Should I-"

"You should stick to doing whatever Julius has asked of you. He needs to believe you work for him. Which incidentally means you need to stop materialising in here."

"I like it here." Bi-Han said sulkily.

"Well tough luck. My father's paranoid, so if he gets wind of you still visiting me, you'll be looking at the barrel of a gun down a backstreet."

Bi-Han nodded sullenly. He swivelled on the desk and sat crossed legged on it. Grace gave him a disapproving look.

"Talking of your father – I met him."

"I assumed as much."

"He doesn't like you."

"A tactical error in his part." Grace's comebacks were as fast as ever, but Bi-Han had lived with Sektor long enough to recognise the bitterness at falling short in the eyes of a parent. "He seemed to think this war with the police was all your fault."

"If I started a war, it would be orchestrated so well it would be bloodless." She sipped her tea.

Bi-Han grinned,

"Well, if this time round is anything to go by, not entirely bloodless..."

"Any coup has its losses," Grace waved away his comment, "but the lower rabble will hopefully be spared any pointless loss of life when I take over the clan."

"Good," Said Bi-Han genuinely. Grace looked at him, a little surprised. "I mean, I'm glad people like Yi and Audrey aren't going to get tangled up in what we're planning." There was quiet for a moment. Bi-Han heard a rumble of thunder from beyond the cracked open window in Grace's office. There was a murmur of distant rain, and then heavy fat droplets began to spatter on the glass. "Not like what happened to Liwei." He said quietly.

Grace looked unsympathetic.

"If you hadn't gone dragging civilians into Triad business…"

"I know that. But I had no other choice."

"Then why bother with regret?" She shrugged.

Bi-Han opened and then shut his mouth. He opened it again,

"I don't regret anything. I just… I don't know. I feel…" He touched a hand to his chest, "Bad here. Like a weight. Like I should have done something differently."

"That's guilt." She leaned back in her chair, apparently happy to indulge him in this conversation.

"Do… do you ever feel that?" He asked cautiously.

"Guilty?"

Bi-Han nodded.

Grace thought for a moment. She took the lid off her teapot and leaned forward to look in. She replaced the lid and brought another cup out of the draw. She poured them both tea and handed a cup to Bi-Han.

"Not really. I make every decision to the best of my ability with the knowledge that I have at the time of making it. If there's an error on my part, it's in not gathering enough information and very rarely because I judged poorly. I have made poor judgements though. You and Syun, for example. If either of you had hurt the people who work for me any of my establishments, then yes I think I would have felt guilty. But then – the kind of judgement I made of you both wasn't _that_ kind of failure. I failed to fully discern your ulterior motives. On the matter of character, I still maintain I made a good decision. The two of you have only ever proved a boon when it comes to running this place and looking after its employees."

Bi-Han looked down, embarrassed to hear his undercover operation talked of in such a way.

"I think they did more to look after me than I did them," He muttered.

Grace smiled. It was a small, real smile and as such left very quickly, so that Bi-Han almost missed it.

"But in your kind of work – and I don't mean just with me –" She gave him a look and he understood, "You need to rid yourself of guilt. It'll drive a nail through you, paralyse you, eat away at you until you're debilitated. If you care about your own success and in looking out for the well-being of your brother, you will rid yourself of all associated emotions."

"I am trying." He said quietly. "But when I stay close to others for a long time, they start… becoming people instead of just pawns. I start to… _care._ " He spat the word.

She nodded, understanding,

"For their sake, you must not."

Bi-Han took a deep breath. He nodded.

"Can you make sure you're not at the inter-clan meeting with your father and the others? And make sure Nathaniel isn't there too?"

"Nat? You still care about him?"

"I don't care about anyone." Bi-Han said quickly. "Not Nat, not…" He looked up at her slowly. Then looked back down and drank the rest of his tea in one swallow, "It would just be easier for me if I didn't have to-"

"This is ridiculous talk anyway, Zho. Of course I won't let Nat attend. Even if I have to kidnap him he won't be there. He's my little brother."

Bi-Han smiled with relief. He nodded again, assured.

"Now, you better get going. And don't let me catch you round here again. You work for Julius now, alright?"

He picked up the mobile phone from the desk and pocketed it. He gave her a bow still too full of respect for his new position. She rolled her eyes.

"Get out of here, Zho. Go make me head of the JFP."

He grinned and left.

* * *

 **Author Note:** He's still young and only just an adult, if people gave him the space to ask questions and to let him voice his concerns I bet he'd still have time to be a more rounded human being. I like the idea that the more Bi-Han gets to know someone, the more he might let them see his vulnerabilities and trust them more than himself.


	40. Monsters in the Dark

Bi-Han studied the window. It was dark, but a faint light from down the stairs gave him enough to see by. The latch was on the inside, half way up the window. He summoned ice to a finger tip, letting it form a long talon on his index finger and harden there to a crystalline point. He glanced down, He was only one storey up, but over balancing on the narrow windowsill would cause a lot of noise, and he didn't fancy breaking the fall with the stabwound to his side still healing.

He kept his body pressed flush to the window and drew the ice in a small neat circle, scoring silently through the glass with its diamond sharp edge. He pushed the little circle of glass and caught it gently in his palm. He balanced it carefully on the sill, then reached a hand into the whole and opened the latch on the inside. He withdrew his hand, then pulled open the window slowly so as to make no noise. He slid into the house, then pulled the window down behind him. He stepped into the shadows and waited. A security guard was yawning by a door. He heard voices, then footsteps coming up the stairs. Someone stopped on the landing.

"Got your tea here, Clara."

"Oh, thank god I'm ready to drop." The security guard turned towards the staircase.

Bi-Han walked quietly around her turned back. He could hear the pour of water and the smell of soft herbal green tea. He opened the door that had been behind the guard, stepped in, and closed it silently.

Inside everything was a warm dark. The curtains twitched in the breeze and turned faint yellow whenever a car passed on the street outside. Bi-Han listened first for the regularity of breathing, locating his target and ensuring they were asleep before he took another step.

He walked slowly over to the sleeping figure. A strand of hair lay across their face, shifting slightly, stirred by their breath. He knelt beside the bed. He laid a hand over their mouth, softly so as not to wake them. A long pearly knife of white ice grew in his other hand. He slashed it fast through the neck, clamping down hard on the mouth as he did. Eyes shot open and the body beneath him thrashed, once, twice, then shuddered. Blood seeped dark, turbid, and fast. Bi-Han stood to avoid soaking himself in the blood, releasing the mouth when he was sure there wasn't enough life left in the body to cry out. He watched the last staggering breaths stutter out. Small stunted sounds gasped and gurgled around the blood bubbling in the windpipe. Then the room fell quiet. Bi-Han checked the pulse. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out onto the window sill. He slid the window shut. Directly below him was the front door with its team of security guards. He stretched out a foot, reaching for the next window along. He felt it's edge with his toes and part-stepped part-jumped to the next window. He could feel the new raw skin in his side protesting. Below him now was a low side wall that might hide him when he dropped down. He lowered himself off the window sill until he was hanging by his fingertips and then dropped the distance to the ground. He landed light and shielded from sight.

Under the cover of the wall he pulled off the hoodie he was wearing and carried it over one arm. He straightened the shirt he wore underneath and strode out casually onto the street. He only stopped when he was several blocks away. He pulled out his phone and scrolled down his contacts.

"Yes?" Julius' voice answered tinny through the speaker.

"It's done."

Bi-Han had decided to kill all his targets in one night, since they were linked to each other, and one death might significantly up the security around the others. He'd begun in early evening. His first victim had been heating pot noodle in a microwave. Bi-Han had come up behind them, put a hand over their mouth and stabbed them multiple times in the back in time with the beeps of the microwave, then once in the heart just to be sure. He'd strangled the second one with their washing line as they hung their clothes out to dry. The third had just sat down to watch television with a glass of rice wine and petite selection of salted crackers. Bi-Han had chilled their glass until it was brittle then ground it into their throat until splinters of glass ruptured an artery that exploded all over the living room. It would have been more convenient to keep the death contained, but Julius had wanted brutal, and Bi-Han was going to have to keep the others quiet if he wanted to finish them all in one night. This way Julius got at least one impressive looking crime scene.

An hour later Bi-Han was sitting in a quiet bar recounting the details to Julius. The sense of being watched like a hawk never left Bi-Han for the whole duration of the report. Julius nodded when he was done and stirred his cocktail with a stabbed cherry.

"Good. Now, I have something else in mind for you."

"Something else?" Bi-Han couldn't help let a little dismay into his voice. It was after 2 A.M. and he had barely seen Kuai Liang in the last week.

Julius glanced at him.

"Sorry," Bi-Han said quickly, "How may I be of service?"

Julius' lazy smile returned to him.

"I'm heading to the docks. Was going to take someone else with me, but seeing as your done – seems like a prime moment for some bonding, you and I."

Bi-Han looked uncertain and was suddenly concerned that perhaps his performance hadn't been up to standard.

"Got a late night shipment coming in, we're going to see it safely to shore." Julius stood and drained his glass. "Get a jacket, Zho. We're going to sea."

Bi-Han blinked salt spray and wind out of his eyes. Working for Julius didn't seem to stop. They were aboard a small fishing boat with a swinging yellow lantern and slippery walkways. Everything beyond the boat was black. The sea was visible only as they crested waves and shivers of silver flashed in the light of their lamp. Bi-Han had never been on a boat before. Not like this anyway, out at sea. He had been hoping they would just be meeting a boat coming in to Kwai Tsing, but when Julius had said going to sea, he really meant it. Bi-Han was privately worried that the man might be a little mad. He was standing now on the prow of the ship, one hand wrapped tightly around fishing net winch, leaning out slightly so that the seawater burst in his face. Bi-Han drew his coat in around him and moved close to the light. He gripped the edge of the cabin to stop himself from stumbling as the boat lurched in the waves.

Julius jumped down and skidded over to him, face all grin and cracked with saltwater and wind.

"Trouble staying upright, Zho? Not been at sea before?"

Bi-Han shook his head.

Julius leaned in,

"All Hong Kong Triad belong here. We come from the sea. We were made out here in the waves and the wild."

Bi-Han squinted against the biting wind and air thick with sea spray. He had a hard time picturing Ambrose Yeung and his conglomerate of casino-residing-businessmen out here.

"There!" Julius pointed.

Bi-Han could see nothing. Julius ducked into the cabin and checked the bearings the steersman was going by. When the boat crested the next wave, Bi-Han saw it: a light like their own rising and falling in the raging black.

Bi-Han wiped salt out of his eyes and covered his mouth to stop a yawn that was taking his body despite the excitement. He blinked crusty water and squinted into the dark. Everything he was wearing was wet, cold and uncomfortable.

The light slowly drew closer. The steersman turned the engine off and on, nudging the boat forward in stutters and tried to hold her close to the oncoming vessel. Another fishing boat drew level with them. There was a struggle of commotion, then its winch was swung across the gap between them. Its fishing net was heavy and swung wildly out over the churning dark waves.

"Haul it in!" Julius ordered over the wind. Bi-Han joined the sailors in clawing at the net. It's thick wet rope cut burns into their palms. One man stood up on the side of the boat and unhooked the net from the winch. The load crumpled onto the deck.

"Zho, get a light." Julius was pushing the sailors aside so that he could pull open the net. Bi-Han could only see one light, so he unhooked the lantern and held it close so that Julius could see. The man scrabbled at the tough ropes, pulling them aside to get to a ream of slick black tarpaulin within. He untied this and reached within. He motioned for the light to come closer. Bi-Han took a breath, he was ready for that black bag to contain anything. The lamp swung controllably, its circle of light spun madly. Inside were plastic boxes filled with vials. Julius unclipped a box and opened it. He held up a vial marked _phenylacetone._

"What is that?" Bi-Han asked.

"The future," Julius grinned. "Send the money over." He ordered and the sailors about them jumped to return a full winch of their own. Bi-Han crouched down and took one of the plastic boxes.

"Drugs?"

"Deconstructed drugs. All the different chemicals needed for Americans and Europeans to make their own."

"I don't get it," Bi-Han shook his head. "Is that really so different from normal drug trafficking?"

"Use your head, Zho."

Bi-Han frowned.

"Money." Julius grinned madly. "This stuff is ten times cheaper for us to buy, and we only need to sell it for a fraction less than every other Triad sells the full product for. This will cut every other clan in Hong Kong out of the international drug trade, at least when it comes to Methamphetamine and Ecstasy."

"Okay..." Bi-Han wiped seawater out of his face and tried not to look as tired as he was, "Won't that… start a war?"

"Not a problem." Julius clapped him on the shoulder, "Got a big meeting coming up soon with the other heads of clans, we tend to meet once every four years. Due one this year, and had word from the KBB last week that they wanted to schedule a meet. Ambrose is good at breaking things soft as silk. He'll get everyone on his side without them even knowing he's cutting their business in half. Always was a master of duplicity."

"I'd like to see that." Bi-han said, a little sleepily. He helped Julius drag the tarpaulin into the cabin.

"See Ambrose smooth talk over everyone – butter them into a sandwich and feed them to themselves?"

"Yeah – I guess."

Julius laughed,

"Well, let's see if I can't arrange that."

Bi-Han's heart skipped a beat. Was it really going to be that easy? He'd struggled and pushed his way through every trial the Triad had set before him, and it all came down to a conversation at nearly four o'clock in the morning in a fishing boat at sea while he was half asleep.

"Be nice to see those KBB take it from him." He said, keeping his enthusiasm to a minimum, "They gave me a hard time in Kowloon."

"Kind of my fault." Julius winked at him, "I did send you in their to rile them up."

"Timothy Chen thought I was playing a practical joke on them."

"Timothy Chen is about as aware of his surroundings as you are right now."

"I'm awake!" Bi-Han blinked his eyes open.

Julius punched his arm,

"Sure you are." He grinned.

Julius' grin faded slowly, caught up in some recollection that troubled him. Bi-Han felt like he'd done more than enough bonding with this precarious man. He had no intention of risking falling out of favour by pushing further than was permitted. He was intrigued by the look in Julius' eyes though. He propped himself upright against the inner wall of the cabin, comforted by the growl of the engine as the steersman turned them homeward.

"Everything ok?"

Julius shook his head as if awaking from a reverie.

"Oh." He was quiet for a moment, then a facade of a smile slipped on, "I was think of the old days – old man thoughts –" He laughed again. "Not even fifty-five and calling myself an old man... I was thinking of when it used to be Ambrose and I out here, collecting shipments for his father. Out on the water we were kings. In our element. Something so wild and free about being out here. The game changes for everyone, I suppose. He thinks I'm pining for the old traditions and keeping things as they were, but I think mostly I'm just wanting my old friend back. Fuck Ecstasy and all this. Things that get big get commercial and the family part goes down drowning. We woulda died for each other. _Died._ Can't even talk about death in that shiny casino. Its a phantom word with no meaning. A dirty word like it's not the only inevitable thing every soul's got coming in their miserable life." He wasn't laughing now. He was looking out at the black sea and the thin stretch of light on the horizon that marked Hong Kong Island. "The JFP is… you know, posher than the rest of the gangs, but we're all still of the street, you know? The money still comes from work, sweat, and blood. It comes from the sea, from the docks, from the streets. And to make it legit you put that money into high society as quickly as possible so no one looks where it's come from. 'Cept Ambrose seems to have forgotten that's not where we were born. We weren't born in the stars, we were born in the gutter." Julius turned the marked phial over and span it between his fingers so that the label blurred. "Well, see if I care. I've still got Clarence. Clarence gets what Ambrose never could. It's all a game. It's all make believe. Sharp suits are for hiding tattoos. Ambrose has got pretty good but the ink's still there."

Bi-Han wasn't sure what to say,

"Mr Tse… seems to fit in to high society ok." He said hesitantly, thinking of the gloves, and empty stare when Clarence had first surveyed him and Anton over the top of his glasses.

"Clarence?" Julius sat back, a smile slipped over his face and his eyes drifted distantly, "Hah. I guess he does. But he'd still be removing organs with surgical precision if that was still our trade. Steady hands he has."

Bi-Han's face was aghast, but luckily he had time to cover over his response as Julius was still meandering down memory lane.

"Always has my back. Always knows what to say, what to do. Knows the things in my head before I ever have to say them." He gave a long slow sigh and looked peaceful. There was quiet between them filled by the slap of waves and the crash of spray and the slip of boots on wet wood. "Anyway," Julius said lightly, "Tell anyone I said all that and I'll skin the flesh from your bones, okay?" He gave a broad smile that still managed to convey that it was deadly serious about carrying through the threat.

Bi-Han nodded silently.

By 7AM Bi-Han was in a supermarket. He'd decided to give up on sleeping and crash during the day instead. He'd remembered there hadn't been much food in the house in the last week. He knew Kuai hadn't mentioned anything because he'd seen how busy Bi-Han was, but it hurt to think he was failing in the only duty he'd really ever prided himself on – keeping his brother safe and well. Perhaps this was how Syun Li-heng felt as she went undercover and took on the Triads – policework and deceptions rolling up and up, and family always that little bit harder to come back to and reach. He squeezed his eyes shut, putting the weak thought down to lack of sleep. He reached vaguely for a multi-pack of dried noodles.

"Jinhai?"

Bi-Han's attention snapped to the present. Liwei was before him with a shopping trolley.

"Uhh… hi." Said Bi-Han. He supposed this shop was fairly close to Liwei's apartment. It had been a convenient choice on his way home from the docks, but now he was regretting it. "Sorry, I'll get out of your way." Bi-Han quickly turned around. He didn't want to think about why Liwei might be here at such an early hour.

"No, wait." A hand stopped him on his shoulder and turned him around, "How are you? I haven't seen you for months. I thought-…" Liwei's face had that honest concern on it, the kind that always made Bi-Han cringe with guilt for all the deceptions and darkness he brought with him to someone so undeserving. "I thought you might be dead. For a while we were bumping into each other, and then I…-" There was a pause, where Liwei no doubt wondered whether to mention that he'd been attacked, "I was away for a few months, and then when I was back in town, I didn't see you at all, and I thought perhaps the worst had happened. It was on the news every day – police and gang shootings, and I thought…"

"You shouldn't worry for me." Bi-Han said curtly, still not quite sure how to interact. He stared at his feet, then looked up and said suddenly, "Sorry for involving you. At the floating restaurant. That phonecall."

Liwei waved a hand dismissively,

"That's nothing, don't worry. I'd do the same again for any friend."

It sounded like Liwei probably hadn't connect that phonecall with the attack on his home afterwards. Or maybe he had and he wasn't about to burden Bi-Han with it.

Bi-Han looked away again,

"I should get on. Like you said, talking with you is dangerous."

"Well, sure. But a few moments more is alright, and especially when you are alive, and well! How is your brother?"

More guilt. Bi-Han chewed his lip slightly,

"Alright, I think. Haven't spoken much with him recently."

"Well, take what you can, Jinahi. I've been cursing myself for months for leaving things like that between us at the zoo when that could have been the last thing I ever said to you. It wasn't fair to talk to you that way, especially not in front of your brother. He seems like a sweet boy, I bet he thinks the world of you."

"He does." Bi-Han muttered.

Liwei grinned, but then put on a more serious expression.

"And I hope you let him see the real you, not just the grumpy face you put on for clients."

Bi-Han blinked and looked taken aback. He opened his mouth to protest, but Liwei grinned again and that made Bi-Han swallow his retort. Liwei always made him feel like he didn't need that final last hurtful word that peppered Bi-Han's usual conversations.

"Keep safe, okay? You're clearly better at this work that you were at cocktail waiting. And there's enough judgement in the world without me adding my weight behind it. If this is what you want to do, then that's enough for me. Look after yourself and that boy though, okay?" Liwei patted his arm again, "See you around, Jinhai."

"See you around." Bi-Han said quietly as his friend rolled his trolley off down another aisle.

 _What I want._ Thought Bi-Han as he threw onions and cabbage into his basket. _What I want._ The end was in sight now. The date was set. There was going to be so much blood, this would be international news for years. _What I want._ Perhaps this would even make the history books. Perhaps a generation of Kuai Liangs would read about it in schools. _What I want._ What he wanted really had very little to do with the matter. He had thought so little about what he wanted over the years, that letting himself have fractional moments of amusement had almost become fulfilling. His world had narrowed to the point where relishing in his work was the closest he came to _wanting._ He had had real desires once, perhaps. But there was little space for them with Kuai Liang in his life. They had been so young when this life was chosen for them, that every ounce of energy went to mitigation, to just holding back the dark that kept threatening to suffocate them both. Other Lin Kuei students were held in place with equal doses of incentive and fear. But not Bi-Han. _Kuai Liang is my prison_. And the Lin Kuei knew it. Bi-Han could be curbed and controlled with carefully constructed threats to Kuai Liang's routine and wellbeing. Changes could be proposed and brought to Bi-Han's attention, and he'd have to bend over backwards to get them revoked, sometimes without Kuai ever realising. _What I want._ There was a reason he did not let himself think of such things. Thoughts like these opened his eyes to the crushing weight of the walls he'd built for himself.

He stopped. The lights above him were bright. The hum of refrigerators was constant and low. The bright glare of advertising labels stared at him from crammed aisles. His breath paused and his eyes went unseeing. His heartbeat picked up and a despairing flood of futility at the uncontrollableness of everything before him drowned his senses. He could feel panic and emptiness pressing up inside him. _Think of the blood. Think how they'll scream. Think of the surprise on their faces as you tear them apart._ His breath returned. He reached for a pack of tofu and placed it in his basket. He walked around the store calmly, placing objects in his bag and thinking of murders to come to banish the empty hopeless thoughts that wanted to take their place.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Update will probably be for last week and this week as I need to work on the next couple of chapters a little more. Thanks for the reviews and comments, I always enjoy reading them!


	41. Fates Woven and Met

Bi-Han was summoned to one side. The view from the skyscraper made him dizzy, or perhaps that was nerves. Julius looked him up and down,

"Hm. You look okay. Finally learned how to dress the part, have you?"

"Well you haven't." Clarence Tse snapped from behind him, "Come here."

Julius rolled his eyes and turned around. Despite the butterflies in his stomach, Bi-Han couldn't help smile slightly as Clarence fixed Julius' tie.

"Fuckssake, Julius. When was the last time you wore one of these things?"

"Probably four years ago." Julius growled, standing demure and obedient as Clarence lifted his chin with a finger and checked his appearance.

"Keep that top button done up." Clarence said, the sharpness gone from his voice.

"KBB are going to come in showing so much ink and I'm meant to _keep my top button up?_ " Julius grumbled.

"If you wanted in with Qian Desheng that boat left a long time ago. In the Jade Fist, we demonstrate our apparently rare affinity for sensible clothing and style. Sleeves."

"Huh?"

Clarence held our a hand expectantly. Julius let out a huff like a steam train and placed his hand in the outstretch palm. Clarence produced a set of cufflinks and began to thread them through the button holes of Julius' shirt sleeves.

"It's not a _wedding_ , Clarence." He muttered, with more embarrassment than bitterness.

"Sorry about that." Clarence said mildly as he finished. And Bi-Han was surprised to see Julius redden further and swear under his breath.

"Good, that will do." Clarence finally released Julius.

"Always got to choose your moments, don't you." Julius said under his breath as he straightened his jacket, still grumbling and awkward.

"I'm sure I don't know what your talking about." Clarence said in that same mild tone. Bi-Han was beginning to suspect that Clarence had a range of emotion and humour under that facade that could only be unearthed by spending decades in his company. Bi-Han had certainly never seen anyone wheedle their way through Julius' bravado to his apparently stammering and blushing inner gangster.

A movement in the corner of Bi-han's eye caught his attention. He frowned slightly. On the other side of the room, Ambrose Yeung was passing words with a few men Bi-Han didn't recognise. A dark look was on Ambrose's face as he watched Clarence and Julius.

"Fuck, is Ambrose looking this way?" Julius said underhand to Bi-Han. Bi-Han felt like he was being dragged into a conspiracy.

"Uh… I… I mean he looked over. He's still kind of looking this way. Looking slightly pissed about something. Or maybe he always looks like that, I don't know I've only seen him once before."

"Fuck him."

"Quiet, please." Clarence said, "Don't worry about Ambrose. Today we are a united front, the Jade First must appear as one. Our enemies must see only a fortress."

"Judging me whilst he's betraying his own past," Julius grated in black undertones, "When was the last time he held a knife except to cut off the end of a cigar. If he wanted traditional values he should have stuck to fishing, or raising his kids like a human being instead of a-"

Clarence put a finger to Julius's lips,

"Hush." Their eyes met and Julius went quiet. The finger stayed in place for a long moment resting, intimate, on Julius' lips. When Clarence withdrew there was something reluctant in the movement.

Bi-Han's eyebrows raised. He saw Ambrose's frown deepen.

Julius didn't say any more after that. His anger seemed to have all dissipated with that one touch. He went and sat himself down in a chair by the far window.

Bi-Han hesitated, unsure what to do with himself, having had no instruction from Julius. He turned to Clarence,

"What should I… ?"

"Stand guard by the door. The other clans will be arriving soon."

Bi-Han nodded and did as he was told. No sooner had he done so and the door opened.

"About time." Ambrose snapped. The older man brushed an invisible fleck off his suit and approached.

Nathaniel walked through the door in black tuxedo and an air of fake confidence. In his shadow walked the ever-coated and elusive Benjamin. Nathaniel brightened as his father strode towards him, but his face fell as Ambrose walked passed him and took Benjamin by the elbow.

"What are you wearing? I said _smart_. Did Singapore addle your brain?"

Benjamin silently shed his overcoat to reveal a crisp suit beneath. Ambrose nodded. Benjamin turned to place his coat on a stand, and as he did so noticed Bi-Han. His expression went black. He said nothing and returned to Ambrose's side. Nathaniel was left standing slightly awkwardly by the door. Bi-Han took this opportunity while he could.

"Nat?"

Nathaniel's eyes brightened on seeing a friendly face,

"Jinhai! Its so good to see you!" The relief was so palpable in his voice, that it wrenched something inside Bi-Han that he did not think existed.

"What are you doing here?" Bi-Han said quietly, "Didn't Grace…?" He left that sentence unfinished so as not to drop too much unnecessary information into a room full of prying ears.

"Oh! Yes." Nathaniel lowered his voice, but he wasn't very good at subtlety, and Bi-Han could see Clarence watching them out the corner of his eye. "She told me she needed me at a special meeting today and asked me to come to her HQ, but this meeting here with my father is definitely more important."

"You shouldn't be here." Bi-Han said lowly, "Go to Grace. She needs to speak with you."

"Ah- Jinhai, I can't do that. You see, we got this summons from Father to come here. Well, I mean – Ben got the summons, but about a year ago my father gave the order that Ben was never to leave my side, so I thought maybe coming along would be the best way to try and fulfil all his orders." Nat smiled a little anxiously.

Bi-Han was reminded of Kuai's face after a lesson, searching his for some small indication of affirmation. Bi-Han could see Clarence's wary eye keeping tabs on their lengthening conversation. A better person might have been able to persuade Nathaniel to leave under kind auspices, but Bi-Han wasn't very good at being kind. He knew he was good at hurting people though. And if it got Nat out of this room, that would have to do.

"You really think the best way to interpret that order was to come here? The inter-clan meeting? _You?"_

He could see the flicker of uncertainty already on Nat's face. Nat looked over at his father and Benjamin deep in hushed conversation. A wistful longing was written on his face and a slight defeat was in his shoulders.

"I… I am his son. He… he might have wanted me here to-…" Nat trailed off, tilting his head a little and making small gestures to try and draw his father's attention.

"If your father wanted you he would have summoned you." Bi-Han leaned in close and spoke in a fast vicious whisper, "Your father wants his old friend Albert Chen who's been masquerading as _Ben_ _jamin_ _Ng_ and assigned an invisible task to keep him off the radar since he returned from a Singapore prison. You were the invisible task, Nathaniel. Your safety was an assignment far below Albert's skills but convenient because you were so irrelevant to the Jade Fist that Albert could walk Hong Kong in nothing more than an overcoat and his disguise would be complete. You really think Ambrose Yeung wants _you_ here? You are the last thing he wants in this room. You are reckless, foolish, and weak. You are a spoilt child grown fat on the Jade Fist name who's never had to do a day of the real work to get any of the privileges you've graciously been given. Everything you have is given you out of pity, and that does not extend to a seat in this room – at this negotiating table. Get out of here before anyone notices that the babysitter forgot to drop you off."

Bi-Han watched as all the personhood drained out of Nathaniel's eyes. His face went pale and he reflexively drew his arms into himself. His lip quivered slightly and he swallowed. He became smaller, shrinking from the cold biting truth in Bi-Han's words. He nodded silently and dropped his gaze, confidence and even composure in pieces as he blinked repeatedly. He backed slowly out the door he had come through. Bi-Han closed the door behind him. He could hear footsteps break into a run as the door swung shut.

A shadow fell over Bi-Han. He turned around and met Clarence's stony eyes. The man gave him a sharp inquisitive look; unmediated by Julius, it was cold and incisive again.

"Just informing Nathaniel he's not needed." Bi-Han nodded towards where Ambrose was talking in a rapid hushed tone to Albert Chen. "The boss has all he wants."

Clarence narrowed his eyes. He followed Bi-Han's gaze to Ambrose. He nodded slowly, then moved off. Bi-Han breathed a silent sigh of relief. Nathaniel would live. He would hate him, but he would live. Grace would make a better leader for him than Ambrose ever would anyway. Perhaps she'd one day be able to restore to Nathaniel what Bi-Han had taken from him today.

The room was filling with light as the sun rose higher over the skyscrapers. A semi-circle of chairs were angled towards a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, affording a calm open vista onto Hong Kong Island. Behind the chairs was a long buffet table laden with jugs of iced water topped with mint leaves, steaming dim sun and fresh made dumplings, hot green tea, and half a dozen bottles of champagne. The smell of herbs and spices blended on the air in a light aroma. It made Bi-Han feel sick. He watched as Ambrose took control of the room.

"I want the KBB over on the far side, by the window. Put Timothy on the edge, where he can be irrelevant but feel important. Desheng will be next to him. The KBB and the IGW have some bitterness between them. Seat them together, so that we look above their infighting when they start bickering. Percival will be here – he can go next to Desheng. Or perhaps Duen should, Desheng can handle any pettiness Duen tries to kick up. The Kwai Tsing Gang will go between us and the IGW. How many do we think will attend? Clarence?"

Clarence stepped forward,

"It's unclear, sir. Blue Neck Feng will be here along with the heads of the most powerful subsidiary branches in the Kwai Tsing Gang. There are a number of possible branches who may be represented, but our intelligence on their latest power struggles is shaky. I council setting out more chairs. Removing unneeded ones is no cost to us, whilst placing more could be seen as an insult."

"Right." Ambrose paced in a pale grey suit, a frown on his brow. Like that, he reminded Bi-Han of Nathaniel. He stopped pacing and looked through narrow eyes at Julius, who was pointedly staring out at the city scape. "Going to deign to lend us your assistance, Julius?"

Julius made a motion with his hand at Bi-Han, without looking round,

"Zho, go help move chairs or whatever it is our master wishes."

Bi-Han moved awkwardly into the conflict between the two. He was thankful when Clarence stepped in and began giving instructions. Tension was already palpable in the room and the other clans hadn't even arrived yet.

Kuai sat in a classroom at school practising English letters in his exercise book. It took him a long time to copy notes down from the board, but he was very proud that he could write in another language. He wondered if Tomas would remember the letters and help him to practice them back at the Temple.

The classroom was a little damp and the lights were too yellow and made his eyes buzz and ache, but he still found himself enjoying the lesson. Dr Ho, the chemistry teacher was teaching them about water and its different states. Kuai had waited a long time for a class on ice. He copied the chemical symbols down in his exercise book and admired them proudly.

"That's right," Dr Ho said, "But do you know why we have to be particularly careful in _dry_ conditions as ice is forming?"

Nianzu put up his hand,

"Yes, Nianzu?"

"We don't have to be careful, Miss, because it's never even cold enough here to freeze!"

"Actually, Nianzu. It does freeze here sometimes. But more importantly, we're here to learn about the global impact of temperature, not just what happens in Hong Kong. Do you think the laws of physics stop when you get to the Chinese border?"

Nianzu muttered and a few people laughed.

"We have to be _careful_ ," Dr Ho continued, "Because when conditions are dry, but moisture is still retained on uneven surfaces, like for example, on a road, the ice that forms there is almost invisible."

"Black ice." Elizabeth Cheung supplied.

"That's right," Dr Ho nodded, "Black ice is often unseen and undetectable until it's too late. Even in Hong Kong, we have records of death caused by black ice. A car approaches a normal seeming strip of road, and, unknown to the driver, the surface is covered in a thin sheet of ice, so clear that only the black of the road is visible. And too late, a car slips, skids, turns over, and…" She let the visual image trail off. "Nasty." She ended.

"The ice is pretending to be a road but really is a death trap waiting to snap us up." Elizabeth clapped her hands together loudly, making the class jump.

"Yes. Thank you Elizabeth. It's New Year, not Halloween, so we don't need any more of that." Dr Ho turned back to the black board and began chalking up some more chemical symbols.

"Dr Ho, can we leave early today? It's a half day for the festival and this is our last class and it's not even winter time any more so who wants to learn about ice?"

"You'll be leaving when the bell goes and not before, Nianzu. I hope you're writing these formulas down, there'll be a test on them next week."

A unified groan arose from the class followed by the turning of pages and a flurry of pens.

Bi-Han watched as the gangsters filed in. Percival So of the IGW arrived first with a great bull of a man called Biting Hornet Duen. Biting Hornet Duen had one white eye because a gash across his face was so big that it had taken his sight. Both Percival and Duen wore navy suits with white open collar shirts that showed a glimpse of full front and back tattoos. Duen sat with his legs apart and brown brawny scarred arms crossed over his chest. A peppering of a black moustache was on his lip. By comparison, Percival was lithe, wiry and impatient. He crossed his legs and twitched his toe up and down, huffing and sighing as the minutes ticked passed and refusing the refreshments that were offered him with a curt shake of his head.

Next to enter were the Kwi Tsing Gang. Blue Neck Feng came, as Clarence had predicted, and with him came a man and a woman, both looking tough and scrawny and like they'd just walked in off the street. Bi-Han could see Ambrose Yeung's lips twitch with distaste.

The man introduced himself as HK Lai, and the woman as Dai Jun. They both immediately went to the buffet table and began picking at the hot nibbles and tossing them into their mouths. They laughed too loudly and pointed at things on the table, talking about the different canapés and drinks. Blue Neck Feng took a cup of steaming green tea and stood infront of Percival So, passing amicable but meaningless words, and twisting his long goatee beard into plaits.

Last to enter was Timothy Chen, wheeled in by the same smartly dressed woman Bi-Han had seen in Kowloon. Timothy gave a reserved smile to Ambrose,

"So good to see you again, brother." From the look of Ambrose's face, he didn't appreciate being called brother any more than Bi-han had when greeted the same way. Ambrose Yeung's grey eyes swept over them.

"Where is Qian Desheng?"

Timothy gave another smile, this time more terse at being ignored,

"Desheng won't be joining us today, he had business elsewhere that needed attending to."

Despite Timothy's small, cracked voice, the room suddenly fell silent. Julius looked up from the window, and Bi-Han saw the worry written into his expression.

"Oh?" Ambrose was stiff in his reply, clearly disturbed but keeping up appearances, "I was very much hoping he might be present."

"Not a worry," Timothy said brightly, "This is Lilian Choi. She will remain with me and see to my needs. I shall be functioning as well as ever even without Desheng at my side today."

There was another silence. It seemed only Timothy Chen was labouring under the illusion that anyone cared for his mobility and wellbeing. The unspoken concern on every mind was that the real leader of the KBB would not be in attendance today.

Lillian Choi wheeled Timothy Chen to the vacant space near the window and helped him into the chair. She fetched him a tray of dumplings and then a glass of water. She performed all these duties with a look on her face as if a foul smell were just beneath her nose. She then seated herself beside Timothy, folded her legs elegantly and place her hands upon her knee. She had long nails painted russet red.

Julius got up and meandered his way to the buffet table and to Ambrose's side. Bi-Han positioned himself close enough to overhear them.

"Do you want me to look into this? If the KBB aren't here-"

"You heard Timothy," Ambrose said sharply but still quietly, "He shall be functioning as well as ever without Desheng."

"You and I both know that's bullshit." Julius reached for a dumpling to keep up the pretence of his buffet table visit. The dumpling was hot, so he tossed it between his hands to stop it from burning him.

"Show some class, Julius." Ambrose snapped. "The meeting goes ahead, regardless of whether Qian Desheng is here."

"Sorry," Julius had a cold mocking humour to him that Bi-Han hadn't heard before, at least not with quite so much bitterness, "I don't know what's wrong with me today, I've come over all queer." He fixed Ambrose with a look and stuffed the whole dumpling in his mouth, then chewed with his mouth open.

"Urgh." Ambrose turned away from him. "Take someone and go find out what all this is about. See if Desheng is pulling the KBB out or not. I can manage here fine without you – I have Albert."

"Great." Julius said coldly. He snapped a finger, "Zho, come." He said a little louder, "We're not needed here."

Bi-Han's heart nearly stopped. His limbs froze. This place was too perfect, this moment too well set up, too many months in the making to let slip past. He needed longer, he wasn't ready. He'd planned on waiting for guards to be lowered. Now was not the right time to strike but the moment was being dragged from his fingertips. He opened his mouth to object, but before he could, Ambrose had turned his cold smile on Julius.

"Why not take _Clarence?_ " Ambrose mocked.

Julius stared Ambrose down. The two locked eyes. The murmur of conversation elsewhere rolled as tumbleweed through their silent showdown. Bi-Han could feel the years of their friendship unravelling in ribbons around them.

"Perhaps I will." Julius said coolly. "Stay." He ordered Bi-Han. "Clarence." He called. Clarence looked up from where he was taking notes on a clip board. "We have places to be." Clarence flashed an inquiring look at Ambrose before following his partner out of the room.

Bi-Han felt the dead weight of certainty cement in his soul. He had to suppress a black smile as he was given back his eagle's perch. He was back in control, everything going according to plan. He stood by the door, watching as the gangsters returned to the soft bubble and hubbub of light conversation. Only one pair of eyes fixed on him. Albert Chen, ever close to Ambrose, watched Bi-Han with a sharp, discerning gaze.

Kuai Liang neatly underlined the words _Black Ice_ with an ink pen. He was so intent on drawing the line straightly that he didn't notice the room was quiet. The classroom door was open, letting in a slight breeze and the smell of fresh rain. The teacher and students were looking up at the tall figure of Mr Martin in the doorway.

"Could Tao Zho come with me, please?"

Kuai frowned and turned around in his seat to look at Mr Martin.

"What do I have to come with you for?"

"I'll explain outside," Mr Martin said with a faint crinkle of exasperation on his face. "There's someone here to see you."

"Who's here to see me?!" Kuai said, suddenly nervous. He began rattling through in his mind who could be here. _Bi-Han's dead and Sektor's come to take me back to the Temple on my own. I have to go back without him, I have to live every day without him, I have to try and learn everything without him-_

"The police, Tao. They want to ask you some questions."

Kuai blinked, and relief swam through him. He felt stupid for letting such frantic thoughts jump first to mind.

"Oh." He said, "Okay."

He put his exercise book away and slung his bag over one shoulder.

"Hey, Tao!" Nianzu called him over as Kuai sloped to the door. Kuai wasn't really in the mood for whatever Nianzu wanted to say. "Tao," Nianzu leaned over his desk to catch him as he passed, "Be careful. My father told me your brother is in the Triad. And he also said the police work for your brother's gang now. So who's asking you for questioning if the police are on your side?"

Kuai thought about this all the way down the corridor and down the concrete steps as he followed Mr Martin.

In the reception area was a police officer in uniform. Kuai didn't recognise the man, but he kept Mr Martin between him and the officer. Kuai tried to peer through the big glass school doors out to the road, but the officer shifted and blocked Kuai's view.

"We'll need the young man to take a ride with us down to the precinct." The officer was saying.

"I should inform his next of kin," Mr Martin explained.

"By all means," Said the officer, "But Zho Tao will have to come with us right away, this is a matter of some urgency."

The car Kuai could see on the street in the gap between the officer's legs was unmarked. There was someone in the front seat. Kuai squinted. Dark unkept hair and a stubborn face that reminded Kuai of Jia. His breath caught. Syun Li-heng.

Kuai took one look at the police officer writing in his notepad and Mr Martin reaching for the school office phone. Kuai dropped his bag on the lobby floor, turned and ran.

* * *

 **Author Note:** There ya go, story title explained. In case it's not clear, big climax chapter is coming up next.


	42. Assassin for the Triads

Ambrose begun by standing and opening his palms. His face was all charm and inviting.

"My fellow Triad. It's new year: a time for honouring our past traditions. Represented here are the four strongest gangs in Hong Kong. We have weathered the changes of one century and adapted to the next, but we will never forget our culture and our pride."

Bi-Han surveyed the room. Despite Mr Yeung's warm welcome there was unease and a slight stirring among those gathered. The absence of Qian Desheng had set everyone on edge. It was still unclear if the KBB were really being represented here. Relations between gangs were fraught and tenuous enough without the added worry that one gang might break every proposal agreed to that day.

"We're here because it's been four years since we last gathered, and so far that tradition has kept our disagreements to a minimum. I know not all of us have been on good terms in the interim…" Ambrose waited out the bitter stares and mutters that passed between the KBB and IGW. "But we are all here today because our enterprising spirits are larger than our desire to feud and war with one another. Money is made by supplying wars, after all, not by waging them."

Ambrose gave a crisp smile. It was not returned. Percival So of the IGW folded his arms and pursed his lips impatiently. Biting Hornet Duen looked bored. The Kwai Tsing Gang were still meandering around the buffet table and had found the corkscrew to open the champagne. Only Timothy Chen was watching Ambrose and even he had a faintly amused expression. Bi-Han realised why Julius had been needed. Ambrose Yeung had become a businessman. He mingled with a society that tiptoed around truths and were pliant around wealth. He had forgotten how to commune with a room full of pride and brash character.

"Pass that champagne around," Biting Hornet Duen said in a loud voice to the Kwai Tsing lieutenants at the buffet table.

"Come get it, big guy." Dai Jun retorted, part playful, part taunting.

Duen stood, his hulk towered over both Kwai Tsing lieutenants. They reluctantly ceded the open champagne bottle to him.

"What's this about police war, Yeung? I thought the situation on Hong Kong Island was stable." Percival So cut in, slicing straight through Ambrose's grandiose introduction.

"It is stable." There was a testiness to Ambrose's voice. Bi-Han suspected he was making a concerted effort to sound like he wasn't talking down to everyone. The effect was not very convincing.

"There's been open gunfire in the streets! Car bombs! A purge of police informants-"

"Nothing that hasn't now been set to rest."

"And what about the case against Cornelius Yau?" Blue Neck Feng chimed in, "He was due to take the fall for all those container crates discovered at Kwai Tsing. Don't think I don't know you hushed up all the witnesses to his trafficking operation. Who'll go down for this now? They'll try and pin this on us is what! Someone has to take the fall for something this big, but Ambrose Yeung only cares about bailing his business partners out."

"When last I looked, sorting out other people's shit wasn't Jade Fist responsibility." Ambrose snapped.

"Oh! Ambrose Yeung has decided to join us!" Timothy Chen smiled, stalling the room with his awkward, pleasant tone. "Don't think I've heard the old Ambrose speak in years. Good of you to join us down here in the gutter."

Albert stepped out of Ambrose's shadow and took a menacing step forward. Ambrose stilled him with a hand. He gave a terse, long-suffering smile,

"It seems some of you think that just because I run my money through high end sales, that I have forgotten what it is to be Triad. Even some of my own seem to think so. Well, let me set your minds at rest – I despise every one of you." The room stiffened. "If I did not think what goes on in this room was important, I assure you I would be keeping very different company, and not suffering the stink of your presence. If I could take everything each one of you has, I would have already. If I could maintain what I have without ever setting foot in the same room as you, I would." Ambrose drew himself up. With a strange, odd sort of dignity, he continued, "But I can't. We have been warring with each other for over a century, and here we are at the stalemate that belongs to enemies. We're not here to be friends. We're here so that we can put our attention on fights elsewhere, instead of with each other. Without us here in this room, there would be war. And at this time and place, and in this age, that would mean the end of the Triads in Hong Kong. Times _have_ changed. Governments and even civilians are much less keen to turn a blind eye to what we do. The world is _civilised_ now. And given the chance, they would let us tear each other apart and then sweep in to finish us off."

A quiet followed that. Even the Kwai Tsing lieutenants were paying attention. Biting Hornet Duen had stopped swigging champagne straight out the bottle. Timothy Chen's smile was gone and Percival So had finally stopped looking bored and impatient.

Ambrose sat down in his chair. He signalled for Albert to sit also. The seasoned fighter reluctantly joined him and folded his hands together. Bi-Han noticed scars on them, old defensive knife wounds healed to thin white lines. He wanted Albert's attention solely on the discussion in the room before he made any move.

"Now, can we begin?" Ambrose spoke with a quiet authority. Everyone took their seats and finally discussion began.

They talked territories and operations, container terminals and long-standing debts. They talked political bribes and police loyalties, weapons smuggling and the latest demand in drugs. They fought out bitterly contested businesses and sorted through four years worth of grievances. Bi-Han watched them with the languid calm of a veteran predator. He waited until the talk had wearied them to exhaustion, but not long enough for final hope of closure to be in sight. He waited until voices were short and snapping and hands passed over eyes with regular sighs. He waited for several champagne bottles to empty and for tempers to flare and bicker over the smallest concerns. He waited until even Albert was drawn into the chaotic council. Albert leaned forward to say his piece about who was to blame for his capture and incarceration in Singapore. He laid out a gritty picture of betrayal in a low quiet voice that seized undivided attention. Bi-Han would have been interested to hear him out, had he not already achieved everything that months of long planning had built to. Albert taking the floor was the last piece in his perfect plan.

Bi-Han begun by moving quietly to the central buffet table, placing himself roughly equidistant between both entrances. He turned slowly so that he was facing the room. Their backs were to him in a semi-circle that opened to the wide window vista of Hong Kong. He could feel his heartbeat gathering pace and pounding just beneath his skin.

Bi-Han stretched out his arms. He kept them low at first. He drew in a large breath and strained his fingers. Cryomancy danced through his veins. He saw them turned vibrant blue with the effort. He raised his arms slowly, fingers contorting in violent vicious grips. Cold gathered around the two doors. Wisps of silvery crystals gathering in the gaps under the doors. They crystallised to thick white lines. Frost sparkled and glittered, crawling up with fractal fingers. The cold followed Bi-Han's command, sealing over in a glistening sheet, gathering and thickening until solid walls of ice stood where the doors once were.

"What… what is he _doing_?" Lillian Choi's horror broke through the debate ensuing in the aftermath of Albert's story. She was not heeded at first, and Bi-Han cocked her a manic grin. She stood abruptly when she saw the door. "What is this?! JFP trickery?" That got everyone's attention. Albert Chen leapt to his feet. Bi-Han closed his hands slowly into fists and lowered them, content the first stage of his artistry was complete.

"Ambrose, explain yourself!" Percival So jumped up too. Ambrose seemed not to have processed any change. He first had to register Bi-Han's existence and that was taking its time.

"Albert, what is all this?" Ambrose sounded irritated, and like the full weight of the situation had yet to sink in. Albert was all hackles up, eyes locked dead on Bi-Han.

"I'm very sorry." Bi-Han announced to the room. "Don't blame, Mr Yeung, he really has no idea about any of this. I regret to inform you that you're stuck in here with me." He brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles. "And you're all going to die."

"You're out of your fucking mind." Albert said softly, but somehow it was the loudest thing in the room.

"And you took so long to realise, old man." Bi-Han flashed him a smile: a real smile. Not a Jinhai smile – a Sub-Zero's smile. And it felt so good to let it out with brash abandon.

"The JFP have gone too far this time!" Percival So threw off his jacket. "We will put you dogs in your place!"

Biting Hornet Duen pounded his fist into his palm to amplify the threat.

Lillian Choi took off her high heels,

"You've been looking for a reason to fight since Tiger put one of your mewling kids in a coffin."

"Did I mention Tiger-fucking-Chen?" Percival swivelled to her, "And what are you going to do with those heels in your hand, a lap dance for us?"

Lillian Choi stuck a high heel through Percival So's eye.

In the pandemonium that ensued, Bi-Han was able to focus everything on Albert.

The older man shrugged off his suit jacket and ripped his shirt sleeves to free his arms. His brown leathery skin was a map of fine white scars – a lifetime of war. Albert ran his hand back through his greying hair, forcing it out of his eyes. His shoulders hulked forward a little, and Bi-Han saw that despite his advancing years, he was still agile. The battleground behind them faded to a distant blur. The small space between them became their whole world. Their eyes snapped to each others movements, calculating and studying one another. Where Albert stepped to the left, Bi-Han stepped to the right, matching him step for step.

"I always knew there was something wrong with you." Albert whispered. "From the day you stabbed Tobias outside that restaurant. Where the fuck did those knives come from?"

"You mean these knives?" Bi-Han grinned wickedly. He let long blades of ice form in his hands, "Afraid I don't play fair." Albert's eyes widened, but shock was tempered by raw instinct and survival. He kept circling, looking for an opening, drawing closer.

"I don't care if you're some kind of freak – you threaten the peace here, then you'll pay for it with your life."

Bi-Han smiled again. It had been so long since he was permitted a true fight. He let the ground under him cool rapidly. A spread of ice shimmered new and thin over the wooden floor, almost invisible in the light.

"Time to dance."

Bi-Han set a foot on the ice and slid forward. Albert dived to the side, rolled, reached under his chair and pulled out a gun.

"A gun! See! The JFP meant treachery after all!" Someone cried. But Bi-Han had no time for that. He broke out of the ice slide into a sail of knives, windmilling them through the air and forcing Albert to break into another tactical roll. Albert grabbed a chair and tossed it between them, trying to use it as cover and stable his pistol for a shot. Bi-Han booted the chair into Albert's stomach, knocking him over and winding him.

"Come on!" Bi-Han said savagely, "Give me a fight. You're meant to be the best the JFP has! Give me a fight!" He booted the chair into Albert again and stalked around him, knives twisting and flicking as he waited for the man to get up. "You're old." Bi-Han sneered. "Get up! Give me a fight!" Albert cocked his gun. Bi-Han froze it with a blast of air and kicked it out his hand. "Not with _that._ "

Albert got up cautiously, backing away as he did so. He reached into his boot and tugged out a switch-blade knife. He pulled it into a backwards grip, eyes never leaving Bi-Han.

"Better." Said Bi-Han on seeing the knife. The next moment it was flashing towards him. Bi-Han darted back out of the way. A blur of silver passed by his face. Albert pushed the upper hand and came back again fast. Bi-Han stepped back, back, back, he became aware of people behind him fighting their own fights. There was blood on the floor. He kept his attention on the expert knife before him. Albert moved impossibly fast, with sharp eratic movements. He slashed, stabbed, and came from any angle, varying the speed of his attack to prevent readability. Bi-Han felt the jerk of adrenaline and fear light sparks of thrill through him. He flinched out the way of a slice that would have severed his neck.

Bi-Han might not know the pattern of his opponent's moves, but he did know knives. A knife that swung up to the left naturally favoured a returning downward slash to the right. The to-and-fro of momentum gave the weapon speed and force with only minimum effort on the part of the wielder. But that to-and-fro could make it predictable. The up-down up-down in-out right-left right-left, even an attentive knife-fighter could not stop those patterns from entering their- Bi-Han slammed the point of his knife through the sweeping frenzy and straight into Albert's left shoulder. He left the blade in there and dropped low to avoid the ceaseless arc of the blade that a master would keep swinging despite the pain. The knife sheered a clip of hair from Bi-Han's head.

Bi-Han's close hand was weaponless now. He could see the fraction of realisation in Albert's eyes as he sought to take advantage of that momentary opening. Bi-Han let ice form in his hand. Albert's knife came down fast. Bi-Han twisted up suddenly from his low stance. He rammed his new ice blade up through Albert's gut and into his lung. Confusion blossomed on Albert's face. He looked in bewilderment at the blade in his chest, still trying to puzzle out where the weapon had come from. Bi-Han rose slowly back to his full height, leaving the new blade where'd he'd thrust it. Albert coughed, blood sputtering from his lips. He was swaying like a tree that has not yet realised its been severed from its roots. Bi-Han summoned ice to his hands again and made two new blades. He crossed them before him and decapitated Albert.

Albert's head bounced then rolled into the centre of the room. The infighting gradually stopped as the gang members turned to look at the head. The force of the decapitation had drenched Bi-Han in his victim's blood. Something grim inside him was satisfied as their eyes finally registered how alien he was among them. They finally got it. They finally saw a monster, and were afraid. It had been so long since anyone looked at him like that, that he'd almost forgotten that this was truly who he was. He'd almost forgotten that the man people spoke to and laughed with here in Hong Kong, was just a construct. The fear in their eyes confirmed all the things he already knew – this was just the way things were.

He let the knifes in his hand extend to full length swords. His smile was a crack of white in a mask of red blood. And he descended upon them.

Kuai Liang was running. He scrabbled down the steep wooded slope behind the school. His feet kept sliding green trails in the moss, and his heartbeat was in his mouth, drying his tongue and filling his throat with dread.

There were shouts and calls behind him. He could hear the _woop_ of a police siren muted on the street. He skidded down the slope, ducked under an iron railing and onto a concrete footpath. He took the steps down to the street three at a time, more controlled falling than running. When he hit the road he looked up.

Hanging from every streetlamp and shopfront were enormous lanterns shuffling in the wind. People dressed in bright reds and golds were teetering on boxes holding long sticks to light new lanterns. He could hear an old woman calling for her daughter to hold her box steady as she reached for a lantern. Fresh street foods were being tossed in open shop fronts all laden with burning incense sticks, strung with red cards, and hissing up a steam of fresh smells and spices. A mill of people were fixing decorations, laughing and hanging golden banners proclaiming good fortune. Kuai Liang did not feel like he had very much good fortune just then.

He ducked into the shadow of a storefront, eyes caught up in wonder as the sun slipped behind the lanterns and blended to a mellow yellow circle, igniting patterns in the paper an auburn gold. Everything about him glittered and rang with the faint sound of bells and the flapping of banners. Kuai shifted shyly in the shadows, confused by all the goings on. A crinkly faced old man leaned over his store front and press a small square of greaseproof paper into Kuai's hand. It unfolded and revealed a miniature sticky rice cake within. Kuai stared up at the man who smiled back then returned to his store. Kuai stuffed the cake into his mouth while peering up the street between the legs of the crowd before him.

The _woop_ of a police car blared once, and the tinny unmarked car from infront of Kuai's school edged it's way down the road. It's headlights flashed continually, and the policeman who had confronted Kuai was leaning out the window, trying to move people out the way with alternate blasts of his horn and _woop_ s of his siren. There was shouting and a fluster of frustration in the street. Kuai took the opportunity to slip away, ducking below streamers and garlands and weaving his way in and out the stalls and strangers. The crowds further down the street had parted, making way for an enormous parade. Kuai had to dart back into the crowds to avoid being trampled. The stamping dance of shimmering lions feet leapt before him. Once safely out from under the parade, he clambered up a lamppost to get a look. A huge lion's head reared over the crowds, shaking its gaping furry mouth, enormous painted eyes blinking as its head tilted this way and that. Great tasselled drums were beating to either side of it, and the lion hopped in time with the pounding rhythms. Behind the lion came the many rows of its monstrous body all dancing step, step, in familiar patterns that Kuai recognised as martial arts moves. He clutched his lamppost and leaned out further to get a good look. The lion jumped, and wriggled. It suddenly turned its majestic head and looked straight at him. Kuai gasped. The lion tilted its head, then turned back to the street. It bowed to a lady on the streetside, offering it a large lettuce. Its lolling tongue seemed to devour the lettuce and the lady laughed with delight. Then the lion began to dance once more.

 _Woop. Woop._ There were shouts of dismay as the unmarked car with its blue siren stuffed on the roof rolled slowly up the busy street.

"Out of the way!" The policeman shouted out the window.

The lion turned slowly, its head tilting comically. The crowds laughed at its antics. The lion danced up to the police car, its long line of legs shuffling and rippling behind it. It nuzzled up to the police car, much to the frustration of the officer leaning out the window.

"Clear the way!" He shouted again.

The lion dance continued bobbing and stepping around the car. People all around laughed, and Kuai couldn't help but join in at the amusing sight.

"There!" Syun Li-heng wound down the window and point out the car. Her finger went straight to Kuai, hanging on his lamppost.

He dropped immediately into the crowds and vanished from sight. Kuai ran in and out people's legs, looking for an opportunity to turn off the main road. He was headed further south onto the narrow peninsular towards Ocean Park. If he kept going this way he would soon run out of road. He stared around desperately. He could head back up the wooded slope, but if they lost him they would know he'd headed back into the woods, and could cut him off with a road that looped round towards his school. His best bet was to keep to the crowded road at present and hope the parade would hide him. The crowds were already thinning though, and he was leaving behind the tall white highrises for lower boat yards and warehouses. He looked back and saw the whirring blue light of the siren moving slowly but steadily down the street behind him.

Kuai kept running. The roads got narrower and more empty. The warehouses to his right became scarce and the woods to his left became more rocky, taking on the natural form of escarpment and cliff edge as they dived towards the sea. Kuai veered off to his right, and crouched behind a crumpled pile of nets and a rusty oil drum outside a dockyard garage. He could smell the thick salty tang of the sea on the wiry nets and the brusque breeze. Within moments he heard the rev of an engine. He held his breath. A car zoomed past him. Relief swelled in his chest. He watched the car go another fifty yards, then stop. It slowly began to reverse. His face fell. It reversed all the way back passed his hiding spot, and pulled up a little further down the road. He heard two doors open, then footsteps on the tarmac. There was a strange clacking noise too. He angled himself so that he could glimpse his pursuers.

Syun Li-heng was hanging heavily over a pair of crutches, and struggling to inch her way from the car. Kuai watched each painful step she made. She placed each crutch with difficulty before hefting her weight onto it and dragging up the next one. Each step she took was punctured by the _clack_ of her crutches hitting the concrete hard.

"Stay in the car, Syun." The policeman who had come to Kuai's school said.

"Like last time?" She snapped. "I told you the exact location to find Zho's brother and you couldn't even apprehend a child. Are you sure the only reason you weren't on the Triad payroll is because you were too incompetent?"

A third person dressed in plain clothes came between them,

"Quiet now, let's not argue amongst ourselves. There's precious few of us as it is. The boy can't have gone far. Our other car is circling back on the top road to cut him off incase he made a break for the woods."

"This is pointless." The first officer said, "We've got reports coming in from the precinct scanners: gun shots from the north side of the island. It could be Triad. It could be the break we need to crack this case open."

"Or it could be nothing." Syun retorted with derision. "I told you, Zho is the key to this case. We can tie him to half a dozen crime scenes and he works directly for Grace Yeung. We reel him in, we reel her in, and if we're lucky we might just find big fish like Ambrose Yeung at the end of the line."

"You said yourself Ambrose won't stick his neck out for his daughter."

"Perhaps not, but Zho Jinhai would die for his brother. We bring the kid in and Zho will walk into our outstretched arms and give us everything we need. I know these people. Now spread out and find Zho Tao or we'll lose everything this operation ever hoped to bring in."

Kuai swallowed and bit his lip. His breath was a tight pause all stuffed up in his chest. He tried to clear his mind, but his thought was broken by the _clack, clack_ of crutches as they slid closer to him.

Bi-Han turned around. He was framed by the streaks of blood in the shapes of handprints sliding down the vista window. The floor was a litter of contorted limbs, slick blood and the fresh slush melt of ice. Bi-Han grinned as he made his way to the last chair. Red snow crunched under his feet.

Ambrose Yeung had ice shackles freezing his wrists to the chair. Even now his dark eyes seemed unable to comprehend was happening before him.

"Who put you up to this?!" His eyes skated away from the bodies lying on the floor and up to Bi-Han, who approached with purposeful deliberate strides. "Was it Julius?!"

"Julius?" Bi-Han paused, "Guess again." He continued his pace, stepping over one corpse, and deliberately letting the fingers of the next crunch under his heel. The sound made Ambrose flinch.

Ambrose recoiled from Bi-Han into the back of his chair.

He didn't seem so imposing any more, Bi-Han considered, but then again, they never did in the last seconds of their life.

"… Grace?" Ambrose asked tentatively.

"So may enemies, and yet your best friend and daughter top the list. Must be hard being top dog."

Ambrose nose twitched in pride and disgust as Bi-Han stopped before him. Bi-Han could still see him thinking, puzzling, trying to think his way out of this inevitability.

"And Qian Desheng? Is he in on this?"

"None of that matters any more." Bi-Han said softly. He crouched down before the chair, looking up slightly into the JFP leader's eyes. "Not for you anyway. Your time is done, your seconds counted. Time to make peace." His smile again sliced through a cracked mask of dried blood, showing a flash of white teeth. "I envy you in a way. You don't have to worry about any of this any more. No politics, no people, no expectations, no failures. You can be free."

Ambrose met his eyes, and for a second Bi-Han thought he was understood. Then he saw the cracks in the ice shackles Ambrose had been trying to steer his attention from. He stood and shot two blasts of ice, freezing over Ambrose's entire hands. The man hissed with the cold pain, shutting his eyes and rocking back and forth.

"None of the deaths I cause mean anything to me." Bi-Han said flatly. "But in your case, I'll enjoy making an exception." He let and enormous stake of ice grow in his hand. "This is for Grace." He plunged the stake through Ambrose's heart. He leaned in close as the disbelieving surprise finally left Ambrose's face. "She'll be ten times the leader you ever were."

Kuai closed his eyes tightly as the _clack, clack_ of the crutches dragged forward over the tarmac road. His balled fists trembled slightly. All he could think over and over, was that he couldn't be found. _Clack._ He couldn't let them catch him. _Clack._ If they caught him, they would catch Bi-Han and make him pay for all the terrible things he had done. _Clack._ Kuai couldn't let that happen. He took a silent shaky breath. He opened his eyes. He caught sight of a mound of shingle between a scatter of trees and the dockyard refuse. He peered through the trees. That way led out to the sea – the sea and the shingle breakwater keeping the Aberdeen channel from the might of the ocean. He realised the _clack_ of the crutches had stopped.

Kuai looked up, Syun Li-heng was above him. Her face was turned away from him, towards the street. Kuai dared not breathe. Slowly, he stood up.

"There!" An officer shouted. Syun whirled round.

Kuai ran. He slalomed in and out the thin trees between him and the bay.

"Catch him!" He heard Syun scream over the blood rushing in his head.

Loose stone was under his feet and Kuai had to catch himself as he stumbled. Suddenly he was out in the open. The land was falling away behind him and he was running out onto the breakwater, a single strip of shingle jutting out into the bay.

"We have him!" An officer shouted behind.

Kuai kept running. To his right the calm channel harboured hundreds of nestled white boats bobbing gently. To his left the waves smashed into the shingle and sent thick cold spray metres into the air. As he ran, he could see the outline of the other breakwater thrust out from the far side of the bay into the channel. A strip of sea lay between them – a navigation point out of the harbour into the ocean. That strip of sea was all that lay between him and Aberdeen Island. Safety.

He looked behind him. The two abled bodied police officers were powering towards him, slowed only slightly by the loose stone. Syun Li-heng stood propped up by her crutches at the other end of the breakwater, eyes narrowed and face stubborn as ever. Kuai looked out at the sea. He was not a strong swimmer, and there was no time to disrobe. He hovered a foot over the water.

"Don't be stupid, son!" And officer shouted as he ran, "Come with us, we won't harm you!"

 _A lower temperature is required for freezing saltwater._

The veins on his arm glowed fluid fluorescent blue and a swarm of crystals formed about his hands, twisting in myriad fractals. He watched them for a second. Dancing glittering flakes of ice floated like dust motes in the air about him.

 _There's no need to be afraid. The sea is always a cryomancer's friend, Kuai Liang._

He stepped out onto the sea.

The wavelets rose to a wrinkle that slowly paused. The wave froze beneath his step, the rough texture of its movement captured in a perfect freeze frame.

He took a second step. He could hear the officers skidding up behind him. He stepped again, all his concentration spent on bending the cold to his will. He heard the gasp of the officers who stopped behind him.

"What in-?"

He could hear Syun Li-heng shouting, trying to find out why the hesitation, why the problem, did they have him- but Kuai pushed all that aside. He set one foot slowly after the other, aware of the crack and shatter of ice behind him, breaking up as soon as he passed over it. All around him the swirl and buckle of the dark ocean bent about him, calming only for the single frozen path he carved between its crests.

The world in that moment was enormous. It was the stretch of the sea and its uncountable grey waves. It was the rearing tall hulk of the island before him. It was the scape of the rolling sky above him and its ghost wisp clouds moving fast with high winds, far beyond the ken of the land below. He was a speck upon the sea, with softly crunching ice, sheet white and fracturing transparent beneath his wet school shoes. There was a peace and a place to be found in amidst the chaos and violence of the world. There were paths that he could tread, even though they would be long and difficult and take all his cunning. He did not need to abide by any law, and could forge his own way if he only had the strength to keep struggling and keep hoping.

"Zho Tao!" He heard, " _Zho Taoooo!_ " He looked behind him.

Syun Li-heng was standing with difficulty on the edge of the breakwater, her crutches slipping on the loose stone. The two officers she'd been working with were trudging back towards the road, despondency in their step.

A crack sounded below Kuai's feet. He looked down and saw the thin layer of ice shattering beneath him. He realised his concentration had slipped. He felt himself falling, and the cold dark sea rising to meet him. The salt water rushed up to swallow him. With a burst of energy, he froze a thick sheet of ice, clinging to it as he was dragged into the water. Waves buffeted him and slapped his cheeks and went up his nose. He felt the sharp sting of salt water burn his breath and the cold of the water sapping the warmth from his bones and dragging on his clothes. His ice float bobbed madly as he clung to it with trembling fingers. He held his head above water. He took a second to catch his breath, then began to kick madly, swimming towards the breakwater on the far side while clutching his float. The breakwater was a black line before him, rising and diving alternately as he was carried from trough to peak to trough of each wave. He blew his fringe out of his eyes but it was stuck slick with seawater. He smeared it aside with the back of his hand, then lurched for his float as it almost tipped him off. The sea spun him round and for a moment he saw again the defeated silhouette of Syun Li-Heng against the Hong Kong skyline, still cursing to the heavens. He was turned in another eddy and the chop of a black wave obscured all vision, towering above him. His float cut into the wave instead of riding it and the wave shattered over him. His fingers slipped and he went down into the depth. All sound vanished. There was dark and heaviness and cold. The salt stung his eyes. He looked up. The surface was drifting further away. It was a mass of black turmoil. But here beneath the waves, all was quieter, calmer. Kuai looked at his hands as he sunk. He moved a finger and flecks of ice wove into being. The ice shards rose up away from him towards the surface. Kuai closed his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest and curled his knees to him. A slow layer of ice formed over his skin. It thickened. And thickened. All sensation gradually dulled as he was cocooned in the ice. He could feel water rushing around him as he sped towards the surface. He was aware of a change in pressure and the jostle of wave crests about him one more. He burst out of the ice, shards exploding around him. He coughed and hacked for air. Something hard collided with the back of his head and he slipped back under the waves. He kicked hard and resurfaced again. He realised it had been his ice float that had hit him. He grasped for it with relief, then kept kicking as hard as he could. His clothes dragged heavy and thick, snagging him for the depths and enticing him below. Kuai froze his hands to the ice float to keep himself from slipping off again. He could feel his skin burning from the prolonged contact with the ice. He bobbed over the rise in a wave and caught sight of the city lights slowly coming on. The highrises looked beautiful from the sea, like fireflies hovering in columns over the water. He smiled despite the cold and the danger. He swam backwards, with his float half under him, eyes lost in the wonder of the city lights.

The water calmed a little as he neared the far breakwater. He reached its safety with a gentle bump of slimy rocks. He began the ungraceful scrabble onto its bank. He cracked his hands free of the ice and found he couldn't move them. It was growing dark, but he could still see the blue colour they'd taken on. He slipped and sat down hard on the rocks. The numb cold and slow drain as adrenaline wore off sapped him of energy. He sat shivering on the shingle barrier, with the black of the Aberdeen Channel before him and the lights of the city beyond. There was a distant boom like thunder, and the sky exploded into a circle of dancing lights that shimmered red then fell as gold stars. Another explosion sounded on the left and a burst of green light blinked into the sky, then another, blue, pink, gold, red, green, white. Kuai pulled his knees up to his chin and watched as the New Year's fireworks began.


	43. Fallout

Kuai arrived at the bordello shivering and trembling. His hands were so cold he couldn't open the door. He turned the handle by wedging it between his forearms. He fell into the vicinity and stumbled upright. All around him were silken curtains and strings of glass beads and the soft smoke of exotic perfumes and curling incense. He sneezed and kept shaking after the sneeze had finished.

"Hello?" He called, "Hello? Is anyone home?"

A willowy figure shifted through a curtain of beads and came to stand before him. Kuai couldn't tell if the person was male or female so he screwed up his eyes and stared harder. Whoever they were, they emanated a kind of charming elegance that made Kuai immediately feel a bit foolish in comparison. They had a certainty to the way they stood, though, that made Kuai feel safe.

"Can I help you?" The willowy person looked down at him. They were wearing a beautiful peacock blue gown that shimmered purple and iridescent green in the light. Kuai put out a finger and poked it. It ruffled with flow of colour.

"It's so pretty." He said in hushed awe.

"Thank you." The courtesan said patiently, "Now, are you going to tell me what you're doing here? This is no place for a child."

Kuai looked up,

"C-Cold." He said.

The courtesan started on seeing Kuai's face.

"You… are you Jinhai's little brother?"

"Cold." Said Kuai again and he sighed and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. His eyes fluttered shut and everything went a warm pleasant dark.

When his eyes opened again there was warm fur bundled all the way round him up to his ears. There was an open fire roaring before him and so many blankets piled on him he couldn't see his arms or legs.

"Good, you're awake." The peacock courtesan was infront of him with a steaming cup in hand. "Drink this."

Kuai couldn't find his hands to take the cup, so he just sipped from its edge when it was outstretched to him. The hot fluid burned his tongue but warmed him as it slipped down.

"I'm Yi." The courtesan said, "A friend of your brother's." Now that the courtesan was kneeling and at Kuai's height, Kuai could see a bright red quiff of hair on their head and the glitter of gold on their eyebrows. Kuai went very quiet because he'd never seen anyone who looked like that before. He wriggled his hands free and took the hot cup, letting its warmth go into his fingers. He sipped again, then kept staring. "Definitely Zho Jinhai's brother." Yi said.

A young lady in a yellow chiffon dress walked in. Her eyelids had rose red wings and a her lips were painted gold. Kuai stared at her too. She frowned once then knelt next to Yi.

"He's awake..." She said quietly, "The boss wanted to speak with him as soon as he woke."

A flicker of fear twitched in Kuai heart. His face must have showed it, because the lady said quickly,

"But we'll let him rest a little first." She gave Kuai a smile, "Everything will be alright. And there's no need to worry about the Boss. She'll got to hell and back before anything happens to you or your brother, ok?"

Kuai nodded silently and sipped his drink. Now that sensation was coming back to him, he realised his drink was sweet and creamy.

"What is this?"

"Hot chocolate." The lady said.

"What's chocolate?"

Yi and the lady exchanged glances and shrugged. The lady stood and ruffled Kuai's hair then left.

"Now," Yi said after the lady had left. "It would be best if you took off those wet clothes and we hung them to dry infront of the fire. On the sofa over there is one of the Boss's jackets, you can wear that for now – unless you'd rather a silk gown?"

Kuai shook his head fiercely and Yi laughed.

"Drink your hot chocolate and give a knock on the door once you're all changed and dry, alright?"

Kuai nodded. Yi smiled, got up, and left, closing the door quietly afterwards.

Kuai sat silently for a bit, watching the fire. It's flames danced and licked the blackened wood. Branches crackled then snapped, falling in showers of red gold sparks. They reminded him of the fireworks outside. He wondered if Bi-Han could see the New Year's celebrations from wherever he was now. He sighed, sipped his hot chocolate, then pulled off his wet clothes and put on the thick jacket. It was a padded black bomber jacket: warm and too big for him, but still a better fit than Bi-Han's jacket had been. He wrapped himself up in the blanket again and trailed it to the door. He knocked timidly. It opened a crack and Yi asked if he was dressed. Kuai opened the door wider and nodded, he held his hot chocolate in one hand and the blanket to him with another.

"Ready to talk to Ms Grace now?"

Kuai hesitated, then nodded slowly.

"Alright, go sit by the fire and keep yourself warm, I'll let her know you're ready."

When Grace came in, she was wearing her round green glasses and a blazer and shirt and pinstripe trousers and very shiny shoes. Kuai shrunk back a little into his blanket pile.

"Small Zho," She said. She crouched down and snapped off her glasses. "You take a dive in the ocean? Wrong time of year for that."

"My name is T-Tao." The cold hadn't quite been driven out of him yet.

"Someone chasing you, Tao?"

Her eyes were astute as she cut straight to the point.

Kuai opened his mouth,

"Um." He'd been so focussed on surviving that he hadn't quite thought through how he wanted to play all this out. "Police."

"Police?" Grace's eyes lit up, like Bi-Han's did when he talked of going on a mission. "Get a look at them? Think you can give me descriptions?"

"I guess." Kuai said.

"And their vehicle. Did you get a look at the plate?"

"Plate?"

"Number on the front or back?"

Kuai shook his head,

"It didn't look like a normal police car though. They had to put a little light on the top to get people to move out the way."

Grace nodded, but Kuai could see from her tense posture that this information wasn't useful to her.

"Anyone you recognised?"

"Huh?"

"Chasing you? Anyone you recognised chasing you?"

Kuai's heart was beating fast, but his face stayed blank,

"No, ma'am."

Grace looked disappointed. She stood and spoke with a man in the doorway.

Kuai hadn't had time to think about what he was saying, but now that what was said was said, he was calm. He found lots of decisions were very difficult to make, but all he could do was what he thought was right. When he did that, he always felt peaceful. All the confusions inside him could rest in the strength of that decision. It didn't make the world any easier to deal with, but it gave him a place to stand on his feet, and something inside him was satisfied that trying to do the right thing was enough. Syun Li-heng had tried to use him as bait, tried to use him to lure Bi-Han out of the shadows. She had given him countless reasons to want her gone from his life. But Kuai had held her life in the palm of his hand many times in the last few months and the facts still hadn't changed. That was Jia's mother. She was needed. For once Kuai didn't feel that pull and that guilt that he was betraying his brother by keeping Syun out of the crosshairs. Bi-Han was one of the best assassins the Lin Kuei had ever had. Kuai had nothing but respect for his skills, and faith that even though Syun Li-heng being alive might make things more difficult for him, his brother would find a way to prevail. The Grandmaster wanted lots of people dead, but Kuai wasn't about to help add more people to that list, not when people like Jia were the one's who would suffer for it.

"Alright, Tao." Grace pushed her hair behind an ear and place her green glasses back on, "Your brother should be returning soon, stay here until he does. I'll have someone bring you some food."

Kuai sat back against the wall, warmed by the fire and the soft things about him. It would be hard going back to the Temple after all this. But there were things he could take back in his head that would keep him strong. There were stories he could share with Tomas and secrets that he could keep learning from. He would tell Tomas about the lady upstairs who lived with thousands of plants where vegetables hid under leaves and behind strange yellow flowers. He would tell him about schools where all the lessons were done at tables and you could learn about the things out there in the world and not just how to fight. He would tell him about how there were girls as well as boys in the classes, and about one girl in particular who took on six boys at once and still had time to get angry about something called gentrification but also with a few words could turn her bedroom into an ocean where the beds were tall galleys flying black flags and Ching Shih the pirate queen reigned again. He would even tell Tomas about the sad things that had taught him lessons, like meeting his school friend Steven's father, or being locked in a police station, or trusting that adults knew what was going on, because as far as Kuai could see, most adults were a lot more confused than children and certainly were a lot less trustworthy. Like Nathaniel who had fed him burgers to make Bi-Han uncomfortable, or Grace who had put a gun in his face when he surprised her at Nat's apartment, or Syun when she had tried to make him give up information to the police, or Mr Martin who always wanted to talk about the rules except when the rules needed to apply to grown-ups.

The door banged open and made Kuai jump. A man burst in covered in blood. There were bloodied hand prints clawing up his jacket and splatter across his face. Kuai' eyes went wide with fear. He pushed himself deep into the corner of the room. He shook his head as he stared at the bloodied figure. The man kicked the door shut behind him with a violence that shook the room. He turned toward Kuai. Kuai swallowed and drew the blankets up trying to become invisible in the corner. He wished Yi were still here, or that lady, or even Grace.

"Kuai." The voice was surprisingly gentle.

"B...Bi-Han?"

"Why are you hiding? Did someone here hurt you?"

"Ah… no." Kuai extracted himself from the corner. Somehow knowing the man before him was his brother didn't dispel the fear inside him. He tried to peer through the blood and recognise the face beneath. "I'm fine."

"Did something happen? Someone said the police were after you."

"All okay." Kuai said and smiled mechanically. "And… how about… you?"

"Yes. Good. Very good." He flashed Kuai a grin. "Excellent in fact. Soon we'll be on our way home. Got to move before the news spreads too far."

Kuai gave his brother a slight nod and another stiff smile.

"Got to go talk to Grace now, stay put."

"Yes, Bi-Han," Kuai said quietly.

Bi-Han stalked down the corridor and pushed into Grace's office.

"God you're a mess. Did you come through my front door looking like that?"

"They're all dead." Bi-Han grinned, "Snuffed out like candles in the night."

"Alright, enough poetry. Give me the details." Grace stood, her eagerness evident in her pacing. Her office suddenly looked too small for her. She was a big cat prowling a cage.

"As per my mission, the head of the Jade Fist Pact, the Kowloon Bay Boys, the Industrial Guild of Workers, and the Kwai Tsing Gang. All dead."

"Fucking hell." Grace put her hand to her head as those words began to register, "Fucking hell, this is really happening."

"All those in the immediate chain of command are gone too, save you and Desheng, as we agreed. The IGW lost their best fighter as well as their leader, The Kwai Tsing Gang lost and additional top two lieutenants. And Albert Chen. Decapitated him." Grace's eyes lit up as he said that, "He was the last one loyal to your father. The clan is yours."

She paused in her jubilation,

"The last…? Did you not – what about Julius Hau and Clarence Tse?"

Bi-Han paced the part of the room she wasn't pacing in.

"They got away."

"Fuck!"

"It's okay." He calmed her, "It's ok, I think. I don't think they'll oppose you. Julius in particular – he as good as turned on your father. They're together – I mean I think they are – it's not really my area of expertise. Julius and Clarence."

"Together? Together on the run?"

"No. Together together. As in…"

"Oh." She paused for a moment, "Not that surprising really."

"And your father disapproved, I think."

"Of course he did."

"But you could use that. They're useful people to have around. Under you many things in the JFP will change that were previously old-fashioned. Step up and I think they will follow you. Let them – have whatever they want – I don't know – a life together I suppose-"

"It's a big risk. A fucking big risk, Zho. You said all my father's top people would be dead. And now this-"

"Kill them all and you'll kill the clan."

"That was your mission, wasn't it?"

"My mission was just to kill the heads of each clan. Not my fault if my client wasn't longsighted enough to see that the whole network needs dismantling to keep the clans dead."

She laughed nervously. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and middle finger.

"Fucking hell," She said again, but this time more quietly.

"It's all yours," He said, unable to keep the slight envy from his voice, "You just have to take it."

She clapped him on the shoulder and for once he didn't flinch from the contact.

"This is good. This is very good. It's good for me, of course. But this will change this city. The old-fashioned views about who can do what, about who can love what, about the place for us in this city and our role within it. All of this is a blank slate now. I can change this place. Because of you."

"You are still Triad," Bi-Han said mildly, "I can see much of Ambrose in you."

"And there's much of him to be emulated. But my rule will be ten times more magnificent, more terrible, more benevolent."

"In that order?"

"In that order." She confirmed. She paused in her pacing and fixed him with hungry eyes, "And now. My father. How did he die?"

"Listening to your name as I drove as stake through his heart."

She smiled. Her face slipped into a darker place of bliss. She leant on the edge of her desk, drinking this in.

"Ah, Father," She whispered, "Did you anticipate this? No, how could you, when you could never see who I was and what I could do. You were blind long before your eyes finally shut." She took a deep breath, eyes disengaged as she stewed in the aftermath of her vengeance.

Now that he saw her hatred laid bare, Bi-Han realised it came from that same place Nathaniel's desperation came from. It was all tied up in hurt things and the expectations that lay between parents and children. These were bonds he'd never really understood.

"Nat was there." Bi-Han added, thinking of Nat's crestfallen face as his father ignored him.

Grace stopped dead in her tracks. All her eagerness vanished and cold dread paled her cheeks. She turned wild eyes on him, and in that moment she looked at Bi-Han the way everyone else did. It was a look of fear and monsters.

"Relax, he's alive. I sent him away. Had to use some hard words on him though. Might want to check up on him."

She released a pent up breath, and smiled slightly, her relief returning her breathing gradually to something like normality.

"Ah, yes." She pushed her glasses up her nose, smoothing over her slip.

Bi-Han could feel a kind of disappointment in his chest. Of all the people in Hong Kong who knew him, he would have thought Grace of all people would know better to think that he would have… Or perhaps it was because she knew him that she'd assumed he'd killed Nathaniel. He looked away. It was time to leave this city.

"I can't stay. Got to be gone before all the shit goes down." He straightened and ignored the stiff tension in the air.

She shook her head. Now that her fear was gone, wonder and disbelief were slowly returning to her.

"This was good though," Bi-Han said. He gestured around the room. "Good fun. Kinda like Hong Kong. Nice here. Hire me some time and I'll come cut up the rest of your opposition."

She nodded and exhaled slowly,

"What, got a business card or something?"

"Not exactly." That reminded him of the phone in his pocket. "You better have this back. Kind of frowned upon where I come from."

"The middle ages?" She was quick and sharp again, her forthright self seizing control once more. She was hunting for information on him, Bi-Han realised. He gave her a sly smile.

"If you want me, ask in the right places."

"Ask for what?"

Bi-Han gave a slight smile,

"Sub-Zero."

He gave her a bow, then left her office for the final time.

He returned to the room with a fire. Yi was sitting near Kuai, talking quietly with him.

"Time to go." Bi-Han motioned for Kuai to get up.

Yi looked up then flinched on seeing Bi-Han's face,

"God, Jinhai! You're-"

"Drenched in the blood of my enemies. Yep. No time for a wash, sorry. Up!" He clapped his hands sharply as he spoke. Kuai jumped to his feet and quickly pulled on his damp clothes. Bi-Han nodded to the courtesan, "Thanks for all your help, Yi."

Kuai stepped reluctantly towards his brother's ghoulish form.

"Bye." He said quietly to Yi, and followed Bi-Han out into the night.


	44. The Fragments that Remain

The coach was full of people. Kuai could tell their trades by their baggage, their clothes, and the quiet words they passed between each other. The only enigma was the man next to him.

Bi-Han stretched. The coach seat looked too small for him. He crossed his legs. Then crossed them the other way. He pulled a magazine out of the pocket on the chair infront of him. He flicked through it then replace it. He was bored, Kuai Liang realised. It had been less than five hours and Bi-Han was bored again. The time span between the things he did and the need for more got shorter each time.

"Nearly home, just like you wanted. I even finished quickly – not even a year and we're all done in Hong Kong." Bi-Han folded his arms.

Kuai nodded. It seemed like a life time ago that he had complained about leaving the Temple.

"Tomas will be pleased to see you." Bi-Han continued. He was talking to try and stave off his boredom, and to try and rebuild the bridge between them that had felt strangely absent since he returned from the slaughter house.

"I hope Tomas has been alright." Kuai said quietly.

Bi-Han stretched out his legs as far as he could and folded his arms behind his head. He blew an invisible fringe out of his face. Before they had left, Bi-Han had taken a knife to the stubble on his chin and shaved his head back to its customary functional short. His clothes were different too – not Lin Kuei garb yet, but something in between. They had an old traditional Chinese cut with a high collar and stiff arms. Bi-Han twitched his collar, pulling it up a little and glancing down to try and make sure none of his tattoo was visible. Zho Jinhai was already fading into memory and beside Kuai once more was Sub-Zero, the infamous assassin of the Lin Kuei.

"So, how'd you like coming on a mission with me?"

"Okay, I guess."

Bi-Han raised an eyebrow,

"Just _okay_?"

Kuai kicked his toes against the chair in front,

"Alright, I guess it was pretty fun."

"What did you like best, the pandas?"

Bi-Han was egging him into that simpler childish relationship, where Kuai would once more look up at him in awe. There were familiar warm patterns to the conversation that Kuai found it difficult to avoid. Having the house to himself, a schedule to himself, friends of his own, being able to travel and do as he pleased had given Kuai independence and a self assuredness that he had a feeling was uncomfortable for Bi-Han. He indulged his brother's need to fall back into the old patterns of their relationship.

"I liked learning different languages, and history, maths, chemistry and literature." A slight flicker of a frown ghosted over Bi-Han's face. "But yeah," Kuai continued quickly, "The pandas were pretty good. Can you believe they really just eat bamboo all day? It's not even good for them! But they can't digest anything else! What weird animals."

"You're a weird animal." Bi-Han messed up his hair. Kuai tried to push him away but his hand was too strong.

"Bi-Han! Don't mess up my hair!"

"Couldn't tell it was meant to be brushed."

Kuai huffed and looked out the window. Rain was coming sideways down onto flat paddyfields that stretched to a grey misty horizon. The channels in the fields ran silver with water. He wondered if he had left the people he cared for in Hong Kong with enough for them to look after themselves. He hoped Elizabeth and Steven would keep talking to each other without him there, and that the things he'd showed them would give them the confidence to be themselves. He hoped he'd dropped off enough spare tins for the lady upstairs, who found it difficult to get the supermarket, and had begun relying on small trips that Kuai did for her a few times a week. He hoped keeping Jia's mother alive would be enough for her family to live better lives, and that Syun Li-heng would find moments to dedicate to her family and not just the work that had already crippled her. He looked up at Bi-Han,

"Are there things you're sad to be leaving behind?"

At first Bi-Han looked like he might brush the comment off, but then Kuai saw him pause.

"There… are things I came to… find beneficial in Hong Kong."

He sounded guarded, like he was already practising his words for the Grandmaster.

"Things like what?" Kuai asked. The coach bumped as it went through a pot hole. The rain sped in fast tracks sideways along the window.

"Things like… people I came to rely on, I suppose. People who were useful. Or who… didn't expect things of me in the same way. Gave me… space to be."

Kuai smiled. Bi-Han had a far off expression and a frown on his face, but Kuai felt closer to him.

"A lot of people in Hong Kong were hurt who didn't need to be, because of me." Bi-Han said. He didn't sound remorseful, more thoughtful. "I kept trying to push people away, and explain that it wasn't safe to be near me. But the same people kept coming back again and again and getting hurt for it."

"Because they cared for you."

"Because they were idiots!" Bi-Han snapped suddenly.

Kuai could see his barriers were up because there was too much truth in the conversation.

"It's like you said," Kuai said gently, "If we respect people, we respect their choices. Even if they're silly choices – like coming back for us. Like you do for me."

"That's different, Kuai Liang." Bi-Han was still abrupt. "We are brothers."

"But you don't have to give up everything for me. It's still a choice. It's a choice you keep making even though it hurts you."

"Because I'm an idiot too."

"I think it's the best thing about you." Bi-Han's eyes snapped to Kuai's when he said that. Kuai steadied himself and tried not to waver under that sharp stare. "I want to be just like that when I grow up. Being able to put aside all the worries about myself and do whatever it takes to care for someone else."

"That's what you take away from what I do?" Bi-Han laughed coldly, "Then you are deluded. And you still haven't really seen me. I brought you to Hong Kong to see the real world and in all these months you've learned nothing. You're still a child and a fantasist."

Kuai tried not to let his hurt show.

"I _am_ still a child, Bi-Han, but that doesn't mean I can't see what's really important. You seem to want me to hate you because you kill people. I don't know why that is: maybe you think it's right that people treat you like a monster. But to me first you were always my brother. You only became all this to keep the bad things away. You do terrible things, but… I don't think that makes you a terrible person."

There was quiet after that. The rain drummed on the window and the engine rumbled and protested the uneven road. Someone on the bus rustled a crisp packet as they ate. Someone else's headphones gave off a tinny murmur and a regular beat. Someone at the back snored softly.

Kuai could feel old worries prickling at the top of his spine. He was anxious that he'd overstepped himself, and that Bi-Han would finally snap.

He chanced a look up.

His brother was leaning back in his chair, not bored or fidgeting, not angry or seething, not even distant and reminiscent. He looked quiet, still, peaceful. Like perhaps those words had set him at ease. After a few moments he caught Kuai looking at him,

"You should get some sleep. We still have a long journey ahead of us. It will be morning when we reach the Temple, and there'll be a full day of training when we return. Rest while you can."

Kuai nodded and nestled into his chair. He tugged a jumper out of his bag and pressed it into a pillow propped between his cheek and the coach window. He watched the mist and silver fields roll by.

"Bi-Han?" He said quietly, eyes not leaving the grey world outside, "Will we be ok?"

"I'll always watch over you." Came the response.

To Kuai it was filled with holes. And didn't answer at least half of his question.

"I'll watch over you too."

"And how are you going to do that with your puny muscles and tiny legs?" Bi-Han laughed.

"I'll never stop believing that the things you do are done out of love."

There was silence.

Bi-Han filled it with a his usual mocking humour, but it was slightly too slow to cover up that Kuai's words had touched somewhere deep inside.

"Do us both a favour and keep the love and flowers out of any report made to the Grandmaster."

"Sure. Okay." Kuai smiled slightly, then closed his eyes and slept.

Bi-Han bowed low, then knelt on one knee before the Grandmaster. The chamber was dark save for the high square-cut windows, long and distant near the ceiling. They let the bright white of the snow bounce a cold light into the audience hall. Stone faced lion guardians looked out from alcoves in the walls and a single faded blue banner dropped the Lin Kuei emblem into the severe, stark chamber.

"Sub-Zero," The Grandmaster greeted, "I hear it is another successful mission."

Bi-Han kept his eyes lowered, watching out the corner of his eye as the hem of the Grandmaster's heavy red robe swept across the dais and came to stop in front of him.

"Yes, Grandmaster."

There was a shuffle of paper as the Grandmaster unfurled the contract.

"Your targets…?"

"Ambrose Yeung, Timothy Chen, Percival So, and the man known as Blue Neck Feng. All dead, Grandmaster."

"Excellent." There were footsteps, the turn of an ink pot, a scratch and flourish of a quill on paper. Bi-Han had heard those noises so often they were like a ritual burned into his memory. He kept quiet as their echo faded into hollow silence, "And in good time as well, as I have come to expect from you."

Bi-Han said nothing. He'd been gone so long from the Temple that he felt like a trespasser in its walls, and that even his breath was under scrutiny.

A knock sounded on the door behind him. It echoed about the stone chamber.

"Enter." The Grandmaster called, there was a furl of paper as he put away the contract. The door creaked open and Bi-Han heard footsteps.

"Sektor, good. Sub-Zero was just finishing his mission report."

Bi-Han felt his chest tighten. He probably should have let Sektor know he was back before coming here. He was overseeing the mission after all. And could make life very difficult for Bi-Han if he chose to.

"All is in order, I assume?" Sektor stopped beside Bi-Han but remained standing.

"Yes, seems so. Did Sub-Zero give you any trouble?"

Bi-Han's breath paused in his lungs. He kept his eyes on the stone step in front of him.

"No, Grandmaster." Sektor answered.

"And yet there was an incident that required your presence in Tokyo?"

"Hardly an incident, Grandmaster. As I explained, it was more an opportunity. If anything, Sub-Zero should have our gratitude for enabling us to make contact with the Black Dragon. Their resources will be a great asset. This will make the Lin Kuei even stronger."

"I know how you feel on the matter, Sektor. Even if I believe all this optimism on your part to be premature, I can see the worth in having this contact. I am surprised however that Sub-Zero managed to behave civilly for the remainder of his operation."

Bi-Han felt another tight constriction in his chest. _The remainder_. So this was about that one unfortunate phonecall he had made early on in the mission. The one where he mistakenly ended up insulting the Grandmaster when he though Sektor was on the line.

"We worked well together, Grandmaster." Sektor assured him.

"Very well." The Grandmaster's footsteps filled the chamber. They came to a stop before Bi-Han. "I shall take that, along with the mission's success, into consideration when determining a suitable punishment for your impudence, Sub-Zero."

Bi-Han's heart fell, even though he could hardly say he was surprised.

"Yes, Grandmaster." He said quietly.

"You mentioned a tattoo?" The Grandmaster turned again to Sektor.

"Necessary in order for Sub-Zero to infiltrate the top level of the Triads. I gave the order for it to go ahead and take responsibility if this action was blameworthy."

"Most noble of you, Sektor." The Grandmaster said dryly, "The action is not blameworthy, though the tattoo will be burned off. Is there anything else I should know of?"

"That is all, Grandmaster."

"Then you may leave."

Sektor left. Bi-Han had not expected to find an ally in Sektor. The chamber felt a lot colder without him.

"Grandmaster?" Bi-Han said hesitantly as the door swung shut behind Sektor. "About the tattoo..."

"What about it?"

"I designed it to subtly incorporate Lin Kuei motifs."

"An unnecessary effort."

"What I mean is, could I not possibly…" He looked up. The leathery lines of the Grandmaster's face made him look older than Bi-Han remembered, but there was still an eagle sharp fell light to his eyes, "… keep it?"

There was quiet for a long moment. Bi-Han kept up the eye contact, but he could feel his insides dropping and fear replacing them. A silence reigned so strong that Bi-Han felt trapped in that empty hollow stare, losing all sense of time and propriety. He felt all his achievements shrink until his was once more the frightened boy who had first entered this Temple and first quailed under that iron gaze.

"Who owns your body, Sub-Zero?"

"You do. The Lin Kuei." Bi-Han said quickly.

"Exactly." The Grandmaster's voice was soft.

Bi-Han felt the stare pierce him, laying bare secret parts of him that he had wanted to keep hidden. He instantly regretted saying anything about the tattoo. He swallowed under the inspection and all the stubbornness and defiance went out of his eyes.

"Sub-Zero," The Grandmaster said, this time more gently, though it did not make Bi-Han any less fearful. "You are my greatest assassin. You set an example to the rest of the Lin Kuei. I cannot very well have you walking around with giant tattoo on your back, can I?"

Bi-Han shook his head even though it had been a rhetorical question.

"It goes today. Understood?"

Bi-Han nodded his head.

"Good."

The Grandmaster turned to a hardwood table behind him where he had been signing the contract. He took a pot of wax that had been heating on a tripod over a candle. He tipped it onto the contract and stamped his signet ring into the hot wax, sealing the contract with the emblem of the Lin Kuei.

"I'm sorry for my behaviour on the telephone when we last spoke, Grandmaster." Bi-Han said tentatively.

"I know you are."

"On missions, I sometimes forget myself."

"I know you do."

Bi-Han squirmed uncomfortably in his Lin Kuei uniform.

"The punishment for this matter is not to make you sorry, but to remind you of your place. You have been away a long time. The world outside softens people. It places temptations inside oneself and whispers to ambitions."

"I'm not… that's not me, Grandmaster. I'm always loyal to you."

"Good." The Grandmaster walked away from the table. "And how is young Kuai Liang?"

"The gap between that question and the previous sentence was not wide enough to stop dread pooling inside Bi-Han.

"He's fine." Bi-Han struggled to keep a mask of calm over his panic. "He has been excelling in his cryomancy. He is much stronger than before. He uses the things he observes in civilian surroundings to enhance his Lin Kuei studies." The Grandmaster's face was blank, and Bi-Han desperately wanted that to change, "H-he can do things like mathe-… mathematics to calculate where his enemies have gone. And sciences that better help him understand cryomancy. And he learned two languages. And-"

"Alright, enough."

"He's strong, Grandmaster, and has used his time well. He-"

"I said enough, Sub-Zero. He has not earned my disapproval."

Bi-Han's face flooded with relief that he didn't bother hiding.

"I only hope that he will continue to excel now that he has returned to the Temple. See to it that his transition to life back here does not give me cause for concern."

"I will, Grandmaster. Thank you, Grandmaster." Bi-Han bowed his head low.

When he was dismissed he swept from the chamber. The moment the door swung shut behind him he was tall and proud and cold again. A mill of warriors moved quietly under a stone portico that opened onto a wide, snowswept square. They went about their daily lives, moving from sparring halls to tactical archives with silent, sedate pace and demeanour.

" _Out of my way_." Bi-Han snapped at a young student, and a path quickly opened up before him as Lin Kuei warriors hurried aside to let him by. Sub-Zero had a reputation for a short temper and wanton cruelty. The rumours of his constant success, his status as the Grandmaster's favourite, and the brutality of his missions ensured that others gave him wide berth. Frigid air moved with him as he stormed passed and left his fellow assassins shivering in his wake.

Kuai Liang pushed sweaty hair out of his face. It was a crisp spring afternoon and fresh snow had fallen in the late morning. He came over to where Tomas was lying sprawled in the snow and grinned. His friend's nose was pink from the cold and his silvery hair lay as an unceremonious halo about his head.

"Got to get up now, Tomas, or the masters will come over."

"Ergh. Let me lie a moment longer. Besides, it makes you look good – knocking me flying until I can't get back up."

"I told you not to eat that much breakfast this morning." Kuai laughed and peered down at him, "How did you even manage while I was away so long!?"

The smile on Tomas's lips faded. He sat up and shook snow out of his hair. He stood and brushed down his clothes.

"Let's go again."

Concern touched Kuai's face,

"Tomas…"

"Come on." Tomas put up his fists again.

When they sparred, Kuai could feel a hardness in his friend and a weight behind his punches that spoke of bitterness at being left alone for so long. They were meant to be practising footwork, and using a light spar to keep their steps functional. Opponent steps forward: one step to the side and forward – opponent steps back: half step, duck and up into their space again – always closing gaps and keeping an enemy near and within striking distance. Kuai and Tomas's spar quickly became a full on tilt, measuring each step and following through with a full punch if the other was not fast enough. Kuai knew their masters were watching, but there was rarely disapproval voiced over upping the intensity of a fight. He matched Tomas's speed and force, recognising the need for his friend to let out whatever was bothering him. Tomas finished the match with a well placed cross hand punch straight to Kuai's chin. It floored Kuai and for a moment a veil of darkness floated across his vision. He blinked twice, then thrice and his sight returned. Tomas was above him, eyes anxious.

"You okay?" He said sheepishly.

"Uh huh." Kuai picked himself up and rubbed the heavy bruise starting on his chin, "You clipped the knock-out points, I think. Nice job."

"Maybe… uh… Forget to mention that to Sub-Zero?"

Kuai laughed and threw his friend a smile. Tomas's face was lighter and the hurt shadows were gone from him.

"You work out everything you needed to?"

Tomas blushed,

"Sorry. Didn't mean to go that hard. Not your fault you had to leave." Tomas scuffed his toes in the snow as a bronze bell sounded for the end of the class. Kuai had forgotten how much he missed that solemn peel and the quiet way it ordered the day.

"You're not alone any more," Kuai said, glancing around to make sure their masters did not hear the exchange, "I'm sorry I was away for so long. I know it can't have been easy."

Tomas looked away and squinted to avoid eye contact with Kuai. He gave a vague shrug,

"Glad you're back now."

"I'm glad to be back." Kuai returned, although he wasn't quite sure that was true.

When Kuai entered his quarters that evening, he found them almost exactly as he had left them. His sleeping mat was rolled up by the far wall. The wooden box containing his clothes and all he owned was near the door. He'd shared this little room with his brother all his life, but this was the first time he looked at it and saw that it was small, and empty, and hard.

Bi-Han was sitting in a corner. His feet were bare and his shirt was off. He was staring blankly at the far wall and didn't look up as Kuai entered. He seemed not to notice him at all until Kuai sat down next to him.

"Good to be home." Bi-Han said. But his voice was dripping with derision and sarcasm. Kuai didn't know what to say, or what might have happened in his brother's day, or how to ask. Instead he reached over and tentatively took his brother's hand in his. It was large next to Kuai's hand and limp like it didn't belong to something alive. Bi-Han already looked so different from the free spirit he had become in Hong Kong. He was stiff and hiding things again. All his movements and words were carefully guarded. Kuai could barely believe this was the same person who'd sat on the kitchen surface, toes curling unconsciously round the handle of the cutlery draw, tapping away at his mobile phone. Bi-Han broken the silence of his own accord,

"They want me doing their hardest missions, but they're always terrified it'll give me too much independence. They want the best horse in the race but they still want to catch it and bring it back into the stable at the end. The more I win, the more they worry."

Their little room was dark and growing darker. It felt cold after their apartment in Hong Kong with heating and rugs and blankets.

"I don't understand what you mean." Kuai said quietly.

"One day you will."

They sat in the dark with the shutter closed to keep out the new snowstorm that was brewing in the mountains outside. Kuai squeezed his brother's hand.

"Did you see the New Year's fireworks?" He asked. Bi-Han said nothing. "I saw them over the water at Hong Kong after I walked across the sea." Bi-Han turned and looked at him, eyes slightly disbelieving. Kuai kept his fingers wrapped around his brother's hand. "I've seen incredible things, Bi-Han. I've done incredible things because you helped show me that I can. We don't have to be held back by the things we're told we have to be or do. Not even here in the Temple. All day here, my hands are doing what I'm told, but here -" He tapped his chest, "In here I'm still in Hong Kong, where I am free."

"Kuai…" Bi-Han shook his head, these weren't the lessons he had meant to teach his brother when he took him with him, "You can't talk this way – can't _think_ this way. It's dangerous. The Grandmaster is watching you. He's watching both of us."

"And how will he stop me choosing to do the things I think are right?"

"Kuai, stop it." Bi-Han snapped. "You don't know what you're saying. You're just a child."

"Then I hope I stay a child forever, if only children are allowed to think brave things." Kuai thought back to Steven, cowering in the corner of his bedroom full of toys for children half his age. "Being afraid doesn't stop people hurting you, so you might as well stand up for yourself."

"Stop talking!"

Kuai stopped talking. He had thought that maybe if he explained to his brother how he felt, that he could make that peaceful expression appear on Bi-Han's face again like it had on the coach. But the peace seemed to have gone, and Kuai didn't know how to make it come back. It felt like it had before – as if the mission had never happened, as if they were back where they had started. Kuai wanted so badly to make whatever was hurting in Bi-Han stop, but where the world felt simple for him, whenever it concerned his brother everything became a sliding greyscale of confusion. There were things Kuai didn't understand at work, and motivations and fears and angers deep in his brother that he didn't know how to touch, how to understand, or how to heal. He swallowed and lifted his brother's arm. He inched his way closer and dared to rest his cheek on his chest, letting the arm come down around him. All he wanted was for something of the last few months to stay with them, to have made a difference, to have changed them. Kuai closed his eyes,

"I'll miss making soup for you." He said quietly.

Bi-Han's frown shifted and his eyelids flickered as if out of a reverie. He kept staring at the wall, and said nothing, but a calm peace slid slowly over his face, and he smiled in recollection.

* * *

 **Author Note:** Thanks everyone for your support throughout writing this. I very much enjoyed hearing your comments and feedback. It's really useful to hear your thoughts, feelings, and hopes for the characters and story and helped me reflect a number of times on how to make my storylines better, and to think about the role of recurring characters and the kind of arcs their stories needed. You guys helped me see for example, that Syun Li-heng needed to return as our main antagonist, and the scene I always planned with Kuai running from the police in Chapter 42 was much stronger, I think, for making that decision and having Syun in it. As many of you pointed out, it's quite fun having a single-mother-undercover-cop as a Terminator-style relentless antagonist, so I would have been very remiss if I'd gone with the original option of keeping her dead in Chapter 23.

I've tried to be more ambitious in this fic – paying homage to the genre of Hong Kong crime movies I love, having meaningful representation and diversity in a cast, whilst still hopefully staying true to the Mortal Kombat characters the story centres on and delving into a past that shaped them into what they become in the games we love.

A special thanks to 2666ll who's been translating this fic into Chinese faster than I've been writing it, and to Soha-friend who's drawn so many pictures of this story! Thanks also to all reviewers and commenters on A03 and FanficNet, to all the silent readers too shy to leave comments (I see you in the stats guys!), and to all readers on Tumblr for their support too. You can find me on DeviantArt under Flane-Erenaeoth, and on Tumblr as erenaeoth.


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